


the beauty of this mess

by jmcats



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Shelter AU, Summer AU, and surfer!liam, california au, skater!Zayn, some family stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 06:10:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 67,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2014062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmcats/pseuds/jmcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He won’t admit how cold his sheets are when he’s alone or how his spine aches for Liam pressed to it or the way his fingers shove unforgivingly into his stack of pillows when he thinks about Jackson drowsy on his chest or Annabelle’s soft face under the moonlight or how that one-story bungalow was the closest he’s felt to home since leaving Bradford.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>(Re: Zayn loves this city, loves his boys, loves the salty taste of the surf on his tongue even though he hates the ocean... but he's not expecting to fall in love with Liam and all of his little secrets, too.  Not enough to stick around in this sandy city of teenage dreams)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the beauty of this mess

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a bit self-indulgent because I wanted a kid!fic and I wanted a summer fic. So here it is, I guess? I'm nervous about it because it's long and I worry that equals boring sometimes. And I know I've already done two kid fics before but who doesn't love a fic featuring Zayn/Liam with children, right? Enjoy?
> 
>  
> 
> [playlist here](http://8tracks.com/jmcats/the-beauty-of-this-mess-california-mix)
> 
>  
> 
> WARNING: This is an AU. I realize some of the details are a bit skeptical and might not make sense but, hey, that's the beauty of fiction, right? Ignore reality and live in the fantasy, please. It's all about fun, family, and falling in love when you shouldn't. Oh, and the summer, which everyone loves, yeah?
> 
> Parts of this fic were inspired by the film _Shelter_ because it's an amazing film and you should definitely check it out :)
> 
> Title comes from "Sleep Baby Sleep" by Broods

 

 

The sky is a firestorm from a slow falling sun and the salty-sweet air is thick and humid like it always is so close to the California coast.

The worn down wheels of Zayn’s skateboard drag coarsely along the broken, chipped grey sidewalks and he smiles roughly up at the hazy clouds that swirl like the start of a tide against a tangerine background.  The collision of blues and pinks are harsh but the sun lights everything else up a soft gold.  It creates a pinwheel of pastels across all of the old buildings in this city, the factory chimneys blurting out puffs of pewter smoke like a sleeping dragon.

It’s that sweet hour between afternoon and twilight where everything is a rosy blaze that soaks his core and, after all of these years, he’s finally found something to adore about it:

The way the sun sparks vermilion and that rich shade of tangelo as it makes a slow descent into the rigid shape of the ocean.

He bites away at the soft flesh of his bottom lip, half-piping down boulevards and throwing tricks between late beach drifters, catching shadowy coolness from thick palm trees.  The sun spikes a heat between the gaps in the clouds that creates slick strips of sweat down the nape of his neck, kissing at each knob along his spine.  His loose headphones blare pieces of _‘well at least we caught some waves – we spit ‘em back at you’_ as he skates further along the empty streets of this dead, dead city.

The salty flavor of the ocean is on his tongue even though the beaches are a dozen or more miles away.  He wrinkles his nose a little at it all – the scene, the takeaway restaurants flooded with starving surfers and punked out teenagers craving the munchies from their sticky highs, the day-glow fading off to show the rough canvas of the city, the sway of the bushes when a breeze kicks back from the Pacific.  He sniffs, pushes back the lid of his snapback to scratch through thick, dark hair.  His ripped jeans sit low on his hips, high tops dirty from years of wear, a loose Bob Marley singlet hanging off his wiry frame with almost all of his ink on display.

Zayn tips his head back for one last chance to pick apart the line of the sun and the drift of the clouds before grinning.

He craves a cigarette and a cold beer and one of those sickly rolled up joints Niall always passes around like a _blessing_ but he knows better.

It’s too soon and there’s a reason for him skipping out on Calum and Luke’s acoustic session near the boardwalk.  A reason he’s not puffing through a pack of Marlboros while marking up his skin with a Sharpie and choosing not to think.

Teeth work intensely at his bottom lip until he drags the heel of his shoe on the broken up sidewalk and cuts a corner down another street.

The music strains in his ears in this crackling noise like late bonfires, just a hum of _‘New York City’s up all night, coming down from ninety-nine’_ until the sharp thoughts in his mind diffuse into static.

And there’s just enough room for him to soak in the world around him, even though he’s never really felt apart of it.

 

/+/

 

There’s something about the drug store a few miles from his house that’s never been comforting –

He thinks maybe it’s the harsh fluorescent lighting or the cheesy 80’s music flooding through cheap speakers in the aisles or all of the off-brand products or that one girl who works behind the register, always popping her strawberry bubblegum and twirling peroxide-blonde her hair between her fingers with the nose ring and the off-center nametag spelling out _‘Princess’_ even though her name is Perrie

– but he knows this place so well now, with the racks of magazines between the cold medicine and discounted items and the small selection of cigarettes too high for children to reach and the incidentally shiny linoleum floors that squeak under the pressure of his high tops.

Zayn ignores the rush of Rod Stewart overhead, rocks on his heels between the allergy medicine and sleep pills built for the worst of insomniacs while waiting for the –

“Malik!”

He clips the corner of his bottom lip with his teeth, relief setting in as he snatches a pack of Marlboro Red’s from the top shelf and shifts about the aisles until he reaches the pharmacy.

Zayn drops the box on the counter, fisting through his jeans for crumpled up dollars with a song he thinks he knows thrumming in strong above his head and he doesn’t bother to look up until –

“You know, mixing nicotine and these pharmaceuticals is not a proper good idea.”

He’s caught by the strong jaw first, the thick stubble all along it like this boy forgot to shave for a week solid.  There’s a little twitch to his soft pink lips, the candy color of something sweet.  He’s got fuzzy eyebrows that bracket large eyes the color of almond roasted coffee beans.  There’s thick hair pushed up and off of his forehead, almost like Zayn wears it but without the product.  Zayn loses focus on all of the hidden ink across his bare forearms, his wrinkled scrubs the color of the sky before a thunderstorm.

A pink, pink tongue licks at chapped lips until they turn crooked for a grin and Zayn is distracted by all of the smooth muscle and the tan skin that looks something like orange tea saturated by cream and the veins in his forearms to notice anything but –

His laminated nametag hangs off of his loose shirt with _‘Hi, my name is… Leeyum’_ scratched out by the dull end of a Sharpie and Zayn loses his breath trying to taste the name along his tongue.

The air finally spills from his lungs when the boy, _Liam_ , grins a little wider until his eyes crinkle in the most ridiculously hazardous way.  He swallows, tightens his jaw and flares tension into his lips, attempting to look unimpressed –

And that feels impossible with the way this boy glows, even under the harsh lighting and dull paint on the walls.

“The meds are not for me, mate,” Zayn finally says roughly, pushing the cigarettes toward the hand Liam has splayed on the counter.

“Oh, right,” Liam says, sounding abashed and fucking adorable.

Zayn looks away to subside the swell in his chest because –

 _Who the_ fuck _are you?_

“Tricia?” Liam wonders, holding up one of the pill bottles between a thumb and index finger, examining the label.  He raises his brow, gives Zayn this sheepish smile that almost unlatches everything Zayn’s trying to contain.

Zayn clears his throat with this impatient look that Liam blushes at.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, shoving everything into a paper bag while hiding those soft, round eyes.

And Zayn feels like an idiot for wanting to look at those eyes a little longer, to watch the way nearly blonde lashes frame them, the way the soft skin around them wrinkles when he’s really smiling.

He laughs to himself, scratching at the ink along his forearm until Liam lifts an eyebrow at him.

Zayn raises his brow back, narrowing his eyes a little until Liam takes the money and fumbles his way through counting out the change.

“Does, well,” Liam pauses, the paper of the bag crunching between his tight fingers as he lingers between the _‘I touch you once, I touched you twice, I won’t let go at any price’_ and nervous looks he keep shooting Zayn, “Does your sister or _wife_ or – “

Zayn sighs, defeated by his own smirk when Liam stutters and falters behind the counter.

“Mum,” he corrects, tugging the bag from Liam’s reluctant hand.  “It’s me mum.”

Liam nods slowly, biting carelessly at his bottom lip and, for a second, Zayn thinks he wants to soothe the skin with his tongue and drag his mouth over the softness and feel the way his own body would react to those loose lips all across the hollows offered in the dark.

“Does she, well, does she knows how often to take her medication and to make sure she – “

“M’sure she does,” Zayn huffs, tearing open the box of cigarettes and tucking one behind his ear.  He cocks his head back a little to admire Liam, shaking his head.  “She’s been taking them for years.  It’s all good, mate.”

Liam nods again, still shredding his lip.  “I’m sorry – “

Zayn shakes his head, flicks a smile on his lips that’s not meant to be intentionally genuine but this kid is just so –

He’s embarrassingly sincere and all over the place and stupidly beautiful and Zayn can’t help himself.

Not at first, at least.

“The world is a fucked up place, man,” Zayn says with a careless shrug, stuffing the bag of pills into his back pocket.  “We all get dealt a rough hand.”

A small, almost unnoticeable frown tips Liam’s lips downward.  Zayn arches an eyebrow at him until he ducks his head, shaky fingers rubbing at the nape of his neck.

“Not always,” he whispers and Zayn pulls a face at him.

Liam offers him a nervous laugh, like he didn’t mean it, dragging fingers through his hair until it’s a little out of place but so organically captivating.

“There’s always something good coming out of the bad, right?” Liam wonders, rocking on his heels and there’s a flush to his cheeks, a lopsided gamble with his lips like his smile is uncontrollable.

Zayn shrugs and he knows he should be walking away.  He should be ignoring the stupid smirk on this boy’s lips or the way he looks kind of anxious, still apprehensive about his own smile.

But that boyish look, even under the scruff and the tan skin and wide eyes, steals Zayn’s attention for a little longer until –

“A little help over here Payne,” Cher with her chunky hair, big earrings, and quirky smile calls from one of the endless aisles of pills.

Zayn smiles at her, recognizes her immediately from all of his other visits to this drug store before –

Before this boy with tinted cheeks and earthy brown eyes.

“Oh, right,” Liam squeaks, rubbing at the nape of his neck with raised shoulders and that guilty look like he’s been caught.

Zayn lifts his eyebrows, wiggles them a little in this comical way that hitches Liam’s breath and Zayn laughs as he ducks away from the counter.  He salutes Liam but it’s not mockingly.  It’s – well, he can’t think of anything else to do.

Nothing other than _breathe_ and he’s struggling with that for a moment when Liam turns away, drags his feet through the aisles towards Cher and Zayn’s a few feet from the door when he hears –

“Christ, Leeymo, really?  You were blushing so _hard_ for Malik, I bet you didn’t even notice.  Thank fuck I was here to save your sorry ass.”

Her giggle proceeds the _‘shut it Cher and piss off’_ that Liam grumbles but it doesn’t sound harsh or spiteful.

No, it’s flighty and hollowed with embarrassment and Zayn grins when he nudges out the door and into the cover of the dying sun.

 

/+/

 

That shy smile and stupid hair and clumsy hands stays with him when the sun sinks a little deeper into the sea and it’s the kind of feeling he’s never had to own before.

 _Fuck_.

But this warm sensation under his skin doesn’t waste away like the fading heat and, suddenly, he wonders if this world is mocking him with Liam.

With a boy that floats through his bloodstream even if he was only around for minutes.

 

/+/

 

The burger shack Niall works at just off one of the beaches is always a scattered mess of noise that Zayn sort of loves, even if it’s chaotic and too loud.

It’s a wide stretch of open space with driftwood mounted into the walls and palm leaves for a roof and the stench of old beer and greasy meat.  The tables are chunky oak, the floors a stiff redwood that makes everything feel safe and comforting.  The menu is a page long, the beer list scribbled out in chalk above the main counter and there’s always old rock tunes mingling with some easy reggae music through the speakers.

Zayn hops onto his favorite stool – the one he scribbled a _‘ZM’_ messily onto the plastic cushion with an old Sharpie two years ago – at the end of the long counter, just outside the small kitchen.

He grins into his knuckles at the small crowd, leftover beach dwellers with nothing better to do than soak up the last of the early summer day before the night starts a new fire.  He flips the menu back and forth between his hands even though he’s memorized all of it, wrinkling up the stiff corners until the plastic puckers.

His smile widens when Niall sidles up in front of him, sun-bleached hair with electric blues for eyes and an uneven smile he hasn’t perfected since having his braces removed last year.  His pale skin is always marked up with freckles and hints of a cherry glow from baking under the sun –

Niall doesn’t tan but he _burns_ sweetly with a smile and hasn’t quite shed that instinctively childish glow he harbors inadvertently.

He fist bumps Zayn with a cheeky smile, stained white apron hiding his shredded Rolling Stones shirt with the sleeves sliced off.  There’s not much tone to his arms but Zayn loves the way Niall makes up for it with this put upon cockiness he can’t quite own but he tries.

“Heard the waves were crazy wicked today,” Niall says in this forced surfer voice he’s been trying to adopt since his family moved here from Mullingar.

There’s still a lilting accent that thickens all of his words but he gives enough effort to stretch a smile up on Zayn’s lips, a little lift to his eyebrows like _‘try again bro.’_

Niall gives him a misplaced smile that’s all _Niall_ , knocking away Zayn’s snapback to ruffle stubby fingers through the thick hair like Zayn’s a puppy.  It’s his favorite thing to do with goofy grins and starlight blue eyes and Zayn never retreats from it.  He lets those fingers with the ragged, bitten nails drag over his scalp until there’s a heavy calm between them and their surroundings fade off.

“Gonna get out to Hawaii one of these day, you watch,” Niall declares, pulling back when Zayn’s hair is fully wrecked, smiling at the damage.  “Gonna wreck it at the O’Neill World Cup, dude.  Righteous shit, man.”

Zayn snorts, cocking his head back when Niall offers him a shaka sign and a grin.

Niall has been trying to perfect his technique ever since his father transported him and his brother to the sandy shores just outside of Laguna when he was sixteen.  He hasn’t adopted all of the tricks and method needed to be more than just a sloppy paddler but he’s got a neat floater on the smaller waves.  He’s a hurricane with his aerials and Zayn once watched him launch his longboard into a small crowd trying to perform a cutback, something he reminds Niall of at every spare moment with a smirk.

“Some sick shit happening up the coast by your side of the city, dude,” Niall adds, wiping down the counter and collecting small tips from beach bums scrapping together coins for eggs and hash.  “D’ya check it out?”

Zayn gives him a careless one-shouldered shrug, sniffing.

He hates surfing.

Well, no, _he hates the ocean_.

The size of it.  The way it looks ready to swallow him alive and he can’t _swim_ , he can’t _float_ so he watches from a distance.  He watches from the coves, the piers overlooking the endless stretch of rippling blues and undercut greens, the way the sun paints it a hazy gold like a sea of sunflower petals.

“Order up Horan!” Paul yells from the kitchen, recklessly dropping a plate on the metal overhang.

Zayn knows anyone else would find Paul intimidating with his large, square shoulders, his rough face, the gruff in his voice when he’s calling out orders but Niall always laughs, smirks until something friendly melts over Paul’s face and he’s knocking the smaller boy back with a sneaky smile.

Sometimes Zayn’s wonder if Paul is more a father to Niall than his own, the way he tosses a heavy arm around Niall’s tiny shoulders, tugs him in with this towering dominance that fades when he looks down at Niall’s sloppy smile.

“Keep your pants on Higgins!” Niall calls back and his laugh echoes in the shack when a greasy spatula hurls into the main dining room.

“Order up.”

Niall sputters another laugh, shaking his head.  “Hang tight,” he says with his mouth quirked up, knuckling through Zayn’s hair again before scrambling away to service a few of the customers at the counter.

The sweet California heat drags in from the open windows and Zayn leans back to look over the yellowing posters of the Beach Boys on the wall, the shrines to Hoffman and Slater and Carroll by the door.  There’s classic boards pinned to the walls and small mounds of sand all across the floors from the beach habitants.  The air is thick with that metallic saltiness he associates with the Pacific and the leftover sun spills inside to toss the dust into the air like orange glitter.

It’s the sort of fragmented nostalgia he thinks no one really appreciates but he does.

“Hey,” Niall says in this singsong voice, a lazy cool Zayn admires about him when he hops up on the counter with a plate of chunky fries slathered in ketchup, vinegar on the side.

Zayn grins, elbows on the counter, his chin on his knuckles.

“Saw some of your shit down by the shore,” Niall hums, nodding approvingly.  “Some pretty sick shit, bro.”

Zayn tries to disguise his smile, the way his cheeks are stained pink.  He brushes the dark fringe off his forehead, swoops it back and sighs.

“You tagged that old building by the boardwalk, right?  The abandoned thrift store?” Niall asks with a mouthful of fries, a glass bottled Cola by his side.

Zayn nods sheepishly, dragging his scratchy stubble over his knuckles until they’re an angry pink like his cheeks.

“Knew it was you,” Niall says proudly, snickering.  “It’s always a _Malik creation_ when it’s got Marvel and DC guys in it.  Killer, bro.”

Zayn snorts, scrubs a hand down his face to subdue his smile but Niall knocks it away to beam at him.  His fingers sketch around the outlined bird on the back of Zayn’s hand.  It’s their small tether to this foreign world and Zayn remembers Niall squeezing his spare fingers while watching the tattoo artist stitch the ink over his skin, wincing when the needle buzzed loudly.

“Thinking about crashing at the Tommo’s after work,” Niall mentions, waggling a few soft fries at Zayn.  “Want in?”

Zayn giggles, leans back with his hands splayed over the counter.

“M’good, bro.”

Niall sighs loudly, shoving a scowl on his face that doesn’t stick.

“C’mon, dude.  Just the boys tonight.  Heard he called it quits with El again,” Niall groans, ignoring a few of the customers trying to get his attention.  He sips at his Cola, the fizzy brown sticky around his mouth when he smiles.  “That means he needs his bros or he’s gonna wank off all night to their shitty sex videos on his phone.  That’s tragic.”

 _So are you_ , Zayn thinks with a grin but he thumps a loose fist to Niall’s spine instead.

“He’ll probably fuck about with that one girl – Phoebe?  Y’know, the one he always shags after they breakup,” Zayn says offhandedly, stealing some of Niall’s Cola.

Niall snorts, licking excess ketchup from his fingers.  “She’s moved on.  Too smart for him, I suppose.”

Zayn shrugs with an agreeing nod because Phoebe always was.  She’s brilliant, studies music theory at Berkley, and nothing like the kind of girl Louis goes for.  Not without a few swallows of spicy rum and rank weed bought off that one guy, Ashton, who’s all smiles and dazed expressions.

“I thought you were knocking around with that one lad – “

“Max,” Niall groans, dropping his chin to hide the crimson on his cheeks.

“ – anyways,” Zayn finishes, cocking an eyebrow up at Niall.  “No more shagging around in the back of his dirty Volkswagen?”

Niall sighs harshly, something like a frown tugging at his lips.

“The asshole is more into casual blowjobs after getting pissed on the beach rather than movie nights and handjobs.  He only phones me up when he’s looking for a dude who _swallows_ – “

“Nialler,” Zayn whines, punching his shoulder roughly.

They don’t have many secrets – Niall, Louis, and him.  Not since that last year of high school when Louis first arrived and the three of them skipped last period every day for cheap weed, cherry Colas and the high sun behind a corner store miles from nowhere.

Niall was the first to admit he was into guys as much as girls over half of a joint, dizzy smoke still swirling between them mid-March.  Louis clung to them over malty beer and a spiraling sun when Eleanor first broke up with him and every time after that.

Zayn, shyly, cried into Louis’ shoulder and squeezed Niall’s fingers the summer before Louis started up college and Niall took a gap year to travel the coast for surfing competitions when his mom’s illness flared up again.

And everything in between – the cheesy jokes, the shit relationships, the hurricane of a breakup when Louis cheated on Eleanor, the drunken confessions when Zayn went on for hours about crushing on dudes and the mess he made in his sheets thinking about _Andrew fucking Garfield_ , Niall’s first and last threesome, all of it – feels like the sort of bond that lasts lifetimes.

It’s like electricity between his fingers and the sort of high he can’t ever come down from.

It’s the sort of connection that Zayn loves, indisputable.  It’s the kind of thing that almost, _almost_ leads him to tell Niall about that boy from the drug store.  About _Liam_ with his herbal tea brown eyes and soft looking mouth and strong lines from shoulders to waist.  About the sound of his voice, shy but still sickeningly happy like he has no cares, or the ink on his arms or the shape of his hands.

He almost wants to tug Niall in close and whisper about how he’s thought about waking up in warm sheets with his fingers buried in that honey-colored hair rather than the way this boy’s cock probably tastes and that feels completely wrong.

It feels dumb and teenaged and Zayn, absently, wonders how long before he’ll forget the stupid smile on Liam’s lips or the pink smudged over his cheeks.

Niall barks out a laugh that knocks Zayn from his daydream, twisting his fingers in Zayn’s hair again with an overly-affectionate grin that Zayn giggles at.

“C’mon Zaynie,” Niall pleads with a put upon frown.  “Bought some wicked weed off that punk rock kid Michael and I’m sure Lou has that red label beer you love.  A night in and no fuck’s to give, dude.  Sweet, right?”

Zayn bites down on his smile when he looks up at him because – well, it does sound refreshing.

The world behind the smokescreen they’ll create with Louis’ cheap television on low and half-pipe dreamy music in the background and their feet propped up on Louis’ coffee table, laughing at nothing but their hushed words and glow-y words.

“Can’t, man,” Zayn says regretfully, lowering his eyes when Niall frowns.  “Promised me mum I’d be home for dinner.  Next time?”

“For sure,” Niall beams, ruffling Zayn’s hair again.

They wiggle their fingertips together in some offbeat handshake they created between math and chemistry classes, a dorky sign they haven’t grown out of like catching shade under palm trees and wasting hours away in the sand with the ocean behind their backs.

“Such a family man,” Niall teases, his accent stronger now but still wavered under a heavy Californian voice.  He dodges Zayn’s jabs by hopping off the counter but refuses to move too far away.

“Shut it.”

They laugh together, eyes bunched up and smiles too large for their faces and the leftover sun streaks down over their expressions until all of the hard, aging features turn warm and bright.

“S’cool, bro,” Niall adds with a lazy shrug, clearing off a few more dirty dishes and dumping a dry BLT in front of another customer.  He gives Zayn a wink over his shoulder, messy hair spun up like the funnel of a tornado and, even in the pale thrum of the sun, his eyes are alive and his smile is relaxed.

“Gonna make a killer father one day, Zaynie,” Niall says, cocking his head back to show off his proud grin.

Zayn blushes, tilts his head away but he knows all of the dopamine running through his system is because of Niall only.  It’s that sugary feeling that makes him always, always want to cuddle Niall or bury his face in the nape of Niall’s neck like he does when they’re stoned and counting the fireflies lighting up the sky.

“Hey,” Niall grins around a swallow of Cola, drying his hands on the length of his apron, “My shift is over in about an hour.  Need a ride back?  I can drop you off on the way to Lou’s.”

Zayn smiles.  He knows it’s out of the way, Louis’ house somewhere in the hills and Zayn’s is well –

He’s never really been ashamed of his side of the city – the industrial side with the rundown houses, cracked pavement, peeling paint and strip malls no one visits anymore.  He’s not well-off like Louis’ family has always been and he’s nothing like Niall’s family with their shabby beach house overlooking the best parts of the Pacific but he’s far from embarrassed by his modest living.

It’s just – he’s not like them.

“S’cool, dude,” Zayn assures him, holding up his skateboard by the axel and Niall huffs out a laugh, shaking his head.

“I dunno why you are so against proper transportation, bro,” Niall sighs, rocking on his heels to the flood of old Aerosmith and Run DMC.

“M’not,” Zayn frowns, smacking a few fingers over the duty wheels until they spin manically.  He half-shrugs at Niall, lips twisted as he blinks at him.  “It’s just – y’know, the family car isn’t always accessible, okay?  Doni has to pick up a few extra shifts at the market.  Plus I get a better view of the city on here.”

He pats his board like it’s a safe haven, his companion.

Niall lets out a gruff chuckle, furrowing his brow when Zayn doesn’t join him.

“Get a fucking car you idiot.  Ye got enough money saved up and that shitty board won’t last forever,” Niall insists, turning away to attend to a new set of customers at the counter – a flock of college girls with their half-tops and skinny jeans and flip-flops.  Their hair is still wrecked from the late tide, twisted and knotted and wavy, and their skin is oily from leftover suntan lotion – bronze beauties that Niall falls over himself to smile for.

Zayn bites at a corner of his lip to suppress him smile, sitting his snapback backwards over his hair before tossing Niall a knowing grin over his shoulder.  Niall salutes him, this time mockingly, and Zayn flips him off before nudging out the doors into the gently cooling California breeze.

The streets are still lit afire by the crest of the sun and the sky is that hazy purplish-gold in the gaps of the clouds.

Zayn grins into his shoulder, pulling on his shoulderbag.  He squints against the sunlight and kicks his board down the sidewalk to get a running start before hopping on the deck.  He swings into the momentum, coasting into the heavy rays and the canopy provided by the palm trees above.

 

/+/

 

There’s a modest park a few streets away from his house that’s always bathed in the last glow of the sun just before the stars shine heavy in the sky.

It’s nothing but cedar wood, an old shaky slide, rotted out driftwood, rusted iron shaped into animals, a refurbished swing set, a giant maze of metal constructs for hanging and swinging off of.  It’s a field of cigarette butts, dirt and wood chips near an abandoned schoolhouse that’s all shitty yellow paint and boarded up windows.  Just another centerpiece in this dead part of the city that reminds Zayn where he’s from – where he’s never going to be again.

There’s a choir of insects in the distance, the last songs of the birds even further out.  Everything seems dull and muted out here but he likes it that way.

It’s nothing but a distraction, a cinematic dream in his chaos.

He drags his skateboard to a stop near the building, pulling a few cans of spray paint from his shoulderbag and a folded up stencil he cut out in the early morning when the sun was low and on the rise.  He kneels down into the yellowy-green grass – nothing but dead patches and topsoil – and shakes up a can, that familiar rattle of the pea like music in the heavens, before taping the stencil to the faded brick –

It’s a silly design, he knows.  Just some massively muscled version of the Hulk that he splatters quick spurts of neon green to.  He takes a few swift glances around, a teenage delinquent waiting to be caught, with his tongue bitten between his teeth in concentration.  Color smears across his fingertips as he adds smudges of purple to the rough sketch, tags a _‘ZM’_ just under the stupid caricature before sitting back on his haunches to admire his work.

Zayn smiles, the cool-warmth of the night thick on his back, across the nape of his neck.  He threads fingers through his thick hair, brushing back the fringe and it’s only then he notices a pair of eyes heavy on him.

He cocks his head to the side when he half-turns and finds a small boy watching him with wide, wide hazel eyes – something like an earthy green with freckles of sharp brown, slits of amber-blue – staring at him.  He’s got a football tucked under one arm, a wrinkled and rolled up Thor comic between his free fingers.  There’s a soft slope to his nose, fuzzy eyebrows, brown hair tinted almost honey by the summer sun and it’s almost long enough to curl but it’s pulled up into a half-quiff instead.

His teeth bite determinedly at his candy-colored lips, small fingers pushing at all of the black and white hexagons on the ball.  Instinctively, he furrows his brow when Zayn blinks at him and he drags the toe of his Converse into the dirt almost shyly.

The kid is quiet with his juice-stained Spider-Man shirt.  There’s something soft and round about his cheeks, almost unnoticeable freckles over his nose.

He carefully watches Zayn’s every twitch, follows the motion of his hands as he lowers the spray can, smears wet paint to the seam of his jeans.

Zayn licks at his lips, capping his aerosol can.  He squints at the boy, smiles hard enough to bunch up his eyes and scrunch his nose.

The boy stays still, long eyelashes fluttering like he’s startled.

Zayn tries to swallow a laugh, lifts his paint-smudged fingers for a small wave, a jerk of his head like a _hello_.  He chews on his bottom lip like the boy does, fiddles with the cigarette behind his ear until those gold-green eyes lower and the boy breathes softly.

“Hey little guy,” Zayn tries but the boy hiccups a noise and scrunches his eyebrows at Zayn, lips descending into a frown before he runs off.

Zayn tries to follow him with his eyes, the street lamps folding over him in this orangey glow but he stumbles around the corner and is out of sight before Zayn can think to call out for him.

He stares at that small spot the boy stood in, with the dirt kicked up and the grass stomped in, and smiles to himself for a moment.  He thinks of his nearly pink cheeks and round eyes and unruly eyebrows to match his hair and snorts at the image.

In the middle of a darkening sky, Zayn thinks he might’ve looked at the sun – a nervous boy with a bitten lip and small hands trying to hold the world, or just a football and a comic book.

 

/+/

 

The house his family rents out is the only two-story in the middle of miles of bungalows.

It always looks rundown in the sunlight with its cheap, peeling flaxen paint and haphazardly done roofing and sand-colored shutters.  There’s a few palms like a bracketing fence and crab grass, still warm shades of green, spiking up in the front lawn.  There’s rough patches of gold leafing, rocks arranged like a walkway, soft wood for a railing.

But under fuzzy purple moonlight and the shine of soft glowing street lamps, it looks like _home_.

It looks like conflict – some place he’s meant to be but can’t quite stay.

The soft squares of moonlight drag over the windows like watching eyes, even with the curtains drawn, and he can smell the warm, inviting scents of earthly spices and heady drafts of paprika, red pepper before he nudges the door open.

The house is quiet, like it always is at this hour.  The first few floorboards groan under the weight of his feet, shoes kicked off into a pile by the door.  He flicks his snapback onto a leaning thrift store coat rack in the corner and lets the muted sounds of the television pull him further inside.

Waliyha, with her constant messy ponytails and leggings and ripped-up vintage shirts like an 80’s pop icon, lies across the couch with her constant quirky smirks and small eyes.  He grins above her as she flips through trashy reality shows and the nightly news with half-lidded eyes.  The living room is swamped in shadows except for the bluish glow of the television and the roar of a snapping fire nearby but she swims in this dreamy pink like an unaffected teenager still caught up in natural highs.

He leans in to press a messy kiss to her forehead, giggling at her adoring whines, feet kicking playfully at him.

“Shut it,” he teases when he pulls back and she succumbs to wasteland brilliance, lazy limbs and soft expressions returning all of her attention back to the television.

“Where’s Saf?” he asks over his shoulder, thumbing over all of the old pictures in sterling frames his parents have set up across old bookshelves along the wall.

He shoots a half-grin at all of them, two summers ago, before his mum got sick again and –

There’s a catch in his next breath before Waliyha waves a hand at him from the back of the couch, huffing, “Already in bed.  She tried to wait up for you.”

Zayn nods, teeth bearing down on his bottom lip.  He drags his knuckles over his stubble, thinks of offer up an apology but doesn’t when he hears a distinct throat clearing behind him.

“She saved you dessert and was hoping you’d be here to watch _the Incredibles_ with her because she knows it’s your favorite but – “

He swallows an annoyed sigh, spins on his bare heels and Doniya may be a little shorter than him but she counters that with strong shoulders, narrowed eyes, the disposition of a school teacher rather than a gentle soul.  She leans in the archway of the kitchen, still wearing their mum’s old apron with rosy cheeks, folded arms.

“I’m sorry – “

Doniya groans softly, shaking her head.

“No, you’re not.”

Zayn quirks his lips a little.  He tugs at the threaded bracelets around his wrist, the ones he and Waliyha sat around for hours crafting while Safaa ran through the backyard pretending to be Wonder Woman.  Its instinct, the way he drops his shoulders like a defeated child and drags his feet over the cold, cold floorboards while she glares at him.

Even in the dusty moonlight and the hollow shadows and that bare, pale flood of light from the kitchen, Doniya looks unintentionally imposing –

Like their mum, years ago, when she was strong enough to be angry with them for not finishing their homework on time.

He wants to smile at that – those days when the summer sun washed gold bars of light over her face, the way she stood so stall even though she’s not and how alive her expressions were when she laughed or sung to them or busied herself for hours in the kitchen.

Moments gathered in the back of his mind like an old box stuffed with Polaroid photos, with their white borders and dimming colors and happiness gathered between the cracks.

He sniffs with a tucked chin, tosses her the bag of prescriptions and almost turns away.  Her face is a little fuller, hair thicker but her eyes remind him so much of another world –

A freedom from this responsibility and maturity and he remembers sitting on an old throw rug with a collection of Power Rangers and Doniya singing loudly to Sheryl Crow without knowing all of the words.

Just stupid kids, unaware.

“Must you stay out all day?” she hisses, the paper bag crunching and crackling between her fingers.

Zayn pushes the fringe off his forehead, chews harshly at his bottom lip while looking up through his eyelashes.  He offers a shrug for an answer instead of a _‘yes, this place eats me alive’_ and her silent response with even sharper eyes drags a rough breath from his lungs.

“Fuck Doniya, it’s _summer_ – “

“Don’t you start,” Doniya groans, arms folding over her chest again.

Zayn snorts, drops his eyes again.  “Live a little.”

“I’m living a _lot_ ,” Doniya argues.  “For our family.  For our sisters.  For our _ammi_ , Zayn, you know that.”

He bites his lip raw and sore, toes wiggling against the dusty hardwoods.  There’s a few familiar sounds filtering through the house but it’s mostly quiet except for the harsh echo of their voices.  It’s so deserted, unfairly haunting and he hates it here in moments like this –

In those moments between sunset and midnight when everything feels like _death_ rather than comforting.

“You could at least be around to help with the cooking, bhaiya.  Help me take care of the house,” Doniya adds in a voice that’s almost pleading but it’s caged in by annoyance.  “Waliyha has summer reading and Safaa needs a positive influence – “

Zayn laughs, tips his chin up.  “That’s supposed to be me?”

“Christ, _Zayn_ – “

Zayn shakes his head, scuffs his heels on the floor.  His fingers brush over the nape of his neck, pressing in to smooth out the tension.  He stares into the dark at a mark in the wall, just a puckered indentation where he cracked his fist against the drywall a few weeks back.

Just a reminder of all the unsaid garbage that floats in the water.  All of the heavy, heavy pressure weighing him down these days.  The _‘be something, do something with your life Malik’_ that everyone keeps saying to him and the way he wants to rebel.

No, the way he just wants to _breathe_ in these steady, calming inhales instead of crawling over broken glass – shattered pieces of his life.

His shoulders drop, knuckles aching from the memory.  He looks up at Doniya, her face a little softer under the catch of moonlight, her frown visible now.

“Let’s not – can we just not talk about it Doni?” he suggests, hands slipping into the pockets of his jeans.  He offers her a half-smirk, one of those looks he gives her like _I surrender_ , his little white flag he doesn’t have the strength to wave.

She stays quiet, blinking at him between shadows and light.

“Tell mum I’ll be up later to see her, okay?” he requests but he doesn’t stay long enough for a response.

He shrugs past her, breathing in autumn spices and wisps of dandelions and poppy seed – just like their mum smells – before dragging his feet through their tiny kitchen with the pale overhead light.  Clips of the moon slants soft edges of light over the breakfast table, over the leftover apple pie in crumbs on the counter.  It’s not quite his mum’s recipe but Doniya tries and it’s that little reminder that this isn’t Bradford –

This is a poor imitation of his childhood and he wonders when he lost half of that –

A _childhood_.

 

/+/

 

When he was fifteen, he outgrew sharing rooms and bathrooms with his sisters and rearranged the basement into a makeshift bedroom.  It’s a grungy living space – never quite enough lighting, always a lingering scent of dust, cramped and worthless – but it feels like a room locked away from the entire world.

He loves it.

Some of his artwork is scattered over the cement walls like a tiled wallpaper.  They’re colorful, his better pieces, silly unfinished sketches and his favorite stencils of city buildings.  His twin bed is stuffed in one corner, an overflowing hamper in the other.  There’s an expensive stereo, a sixteenth birthday gift, set up on an old dresser and a shag rug and most of his art supplies all huddled together and there’s just enough room for him to walk around in tired circles when he can’t focus enough to do anything else.

There’s a crack of a window at sea level that spills oddly shaped bursts of sun and cool moonlight that he props open to wave smoke out of when he thinks everyone’s asleep.

He keeps the music on a low hymn of old college radio – stuff he doesn’t really know but it feels calming.  It feels like the words stitch into his skin and every little piece of old Kurt Cobain or Tom Petty feels sympathetic.

It feels _cozy_ when it washes over him.

He huffs through too many cigarettes, steaming smoke through his lips, letting the heat drag his throat raw.  When he’s patient enough, he holds it in his chest until it heats up like a locomotive and exhales in long, billowing clouds of blue silk.  It makes him feel weightless, dreamy while he chases old cigarettes, down to the filter, with the new ones.

He doesn’t even bother with his lighter – inhaling sharply until the cherry burns a sparkling orange like a field of fruit before sparking his next cigarette on the embers.

Everything feels like white noise between his cells and –

Zayn closes his eyes to stop thinking.

Except he _can’t_.

He can’t stop seeing, behind his eyelids like the starbursts in July that celebrate America and its freedom, that little boy with the soft, soft cheeks.  With the almost shaggy, almost curly hair.  Hair lit like freshly spun gold, a tapestry of browns and stenciled blonde.  Enormous eyes that were a kaleidoscope of greens and warm almond.  Pink lips and a crumpled comic book and a scrawny frame that almost reminds Zayn of his own shape as a kid.

The silence between them, the way he watched Zayn.

That teetering fear in his eyes when Zayn spoke but everything clouds up with the way he looked almost fascinated and curious and so _alive_.

So much like Zayn – not _this Zayn_.

And maybe a little bit like another boy, behind a counter with pinkish cheeks and large brown eyes and ink-stained forearms and this nervous sort of smile that Zayn’s doing pretty good at forgetting.

Well, at least that’s what he’s telling himself.

 

/+/

 

Grovestown Mart is some square of a building, a supermarket at the corner of a long line of rundown shops just a few miles from a carved out dune of a beach that no one really visits.

It’s nothing but peeling citrine paint on the outside, a long rack of rusted carts habitually waiting at the front of the store.  The sun needles against the windows, across the torn advertising signs.  It’s a quiet, quiet place that not many people frequent but enough to keep the doors open for.  The same faces in this scrap part of the city where the dust always settles, the tide always the same.

Zayn and Doniya trade off shifts through the week – Doniya manning the register with the same droll expression, Zayn picking up late shifts stocking cheap canned products – at the store while Yaser keeps a steady shift selling real estate somewhere in San Pedro.

In-between shifts, Zayn huffs through cigarettes out front, watching the late afternoon cars crawl toward the beach and the flank of city-dwellers pound the streets with their Aviators, flip-flops and lazy smiles.

Palm trees anchor over an old picnic table outside of the store.  He sits on it in his weakest moments, Zayn’s Sharpie-scribbling all across the worn wood.  Just old drawings, silly DC heroes and crazy expressions carved into the rough surface.

He’s taken to pulling double shifts most days to help out with some of the bills back home or for more art supplies or for the _fuck-it-all_ in-between when he’s not shredding through the streets with Louis and Niall by his side.

Just some dumb space of tranquility between the frozen food aisle and clearance items.

He drags erratic fingers through his hair after a late shift, still wearing the silly maroon store apron while he waits in line to buy a pack of smokes and a chilled can of Red Bull.  There’s some kind, nervous elderly woman in front of him with a metal cart overflowing with items, cautiously lining each one up on the conveyer while Lou, with her punk rock hair and silvery-blue eyes, watches from behind the register.

He’s too caught between the white noise with all of his muscles throbbing from the long day and he almost chokes in an inhale when, from behind him –

“Y’know, energy drinks are bad for you.”

Zayn carefully bites at a piece of his bottom lip as he half-turns, blinking repeatedly when he finds Liam just a breath away with those silly crinkly eyes and a huge smile.

It’s one of those senseless expressions that Zayn knows he won’t forget for hours and he swears the night’s moon seeps through the large store windows to splash stars in Liam’s eyes.

He swears he hasn’t seen someone so accidentally beautiful, ever.

His lips quirk into a smirk when that cottony blush sweeps over Liam’s cheeks, beneath the bits of weekend scruff.  Liam’s nose wrinkles with an embarrassingly tender giggle, knuckles trying to drag away the tint across his skin but failing.

“Yeah?” Zayn huffs, narrowing his eyes a little.  “So are strangers.”

Liam grins at him, blinking wide eyes at Zayn like he’s a little startled by the sound of Zayn’s voice –

Or by the way Zayn is helpless to the fascinated looks he keeps giving this boy but he doesn’t think Liam notices that part.

Not yet, at least.

“M’not strange,” Liam says with a half-laugh.  He cocks his head to the side, shoulders naturally lifting with the curl of his giggle.  “I’m quite weird according to me sisters, though.”

It’s a stupid, cheesy joke – definitely not a proper chat up line though Zayn’s still certain this boy isn’t even interested in him like _that_ – that Zayn half-expects from a cartoon character but he laughs anyway because Liam offers him this proud smirk like he’s accomplished something.

Like he can see the electric sparks between Zayn’s cells every time Zayn inhales –

And he’s close enough that Zayn can sniff out the heady scent of lemony detergent on his scrubs, something like chocolate on his breath, that familiar hint of sweet coconut from the sunscreen on his skin.

Zayn watches him struggle to rearrange the products in his arms to offer Zayn a hand and a softer smile.

“I’m Liam.”

Zayn snorts, cocks up an eyebrow at the hand.  “I know,” he admits and he feels completely daft.  A little like a creeper but he gives Liam’s hand a loose grip, anyway.  His fingers brush over Liam’s knuckles, the texture soft with little scars over a few of them.

He swallows, Liam’s thumb catching the skin between his thumb and forefinger, blinks away that unfamiliar flutter deep in his belly.

“I saw your name badge,” Zayn explains, jerking his chin up at the laminated ID still hanging from Liam’s scrubs.

Because he wasn’t checking Liam out.  He definitely wasn’t.

Liam grins back, abashed while shifting from foot to foot like all of the energy inside of him is uncontainable.  It’s _addictive_ , Zayn thinks distantly, but he ignores it for a moment.

Just until their hands slowly separate and Zayn catches the callouses of Liam’s fingers over his knuckles for a brief second before they fall away.

There’s a spill of blue moonlight from the windows that coats all of Liam’s other features – the dimple in his cheek, almost unnoticeable, the shape of his nose, the skin beneath his eyes, the outline of his jaw – that distracts Zayn until Liam gently pries the Red Bull from between his fingers.

“They’re really bad for you, actually,” Liam says with this hint of seriousness that’s almost undetectable between the sugary pink lips and push of his cheeks when he smiles.  “It cause all sorts of bodily issues, mate.  Seen a lot of cases where it leads to erectile dysfunction.”

Liam ducks his head some when he finishes, something disorderly sweet about his cheeks and grin and mortified giggle.

Zayn leans back some with a smile.  He chews at his bottom lip until he catches Liam’s gaze again.  “So you’re saying, like, I won’t get a proper stiffy in bed?”

Liam nods shyly, looks away again.

“Tragic,” Zayn laughs, stealing back the can before nudging his shoulder against Liam’s.  “I’ll take my chances.”

Liam swallows, nudges back with a softer touch that disarms Zayn for a moment.  He’s wearing that lazy smile that still hides bits of his caramel eyes but displays the salmon color of his cheeks like those old Spanish-style houses flanking that one beach Niall loves.

“I’m sure you’ll disappoint countless ladies – “

“Or lads,” Zayn shrugs carelessly.  He drops his items on the conveyer, steals his fingers through his hair when Liam looks up through his eyelashes with wonder.  He gives a half-shrug this time, inhaling deep.  “Definitely _boys_ , lately.  So, yeah.”

He catches the peach blossoming over Liam’s cheeks like he’s embarrassed, a hand cupping the nape of his neck.  He tries to laugh it off, thumbing his temple while Zayn unconsciously licks his tongue over his lips and Liam follows the motion like –

Zayn bites at his lip, _hard_ , to slow the blood swiftly filling his cock at the little twitch around the corner of Liam’s mouth.

“You should try B12,” Liam suggests when he’s not too abashed to smile gently, rocking on his heels as they move forward in the line.  “Or water with lemon.  Blueberries are good, too.”

Zayn tips his head back a little, not to admire but this boy is sort of –

 _Indescribable_ , he thinks with this warm, warm feeling bursting through his blood.

“Dark chocolate, too,” Liam offers, flicking a candy bar up onto the counter next to Zayn’s cigarettes.  His lips spread into a grin and the moon glows low along his face when his eyelashes flutter nervously.  “Wheat germ is also good for – “

“Wheat _what_?” Zayn strangles out, abashed by his own voice but Liam laughs with those crinkled eyes and long neck exposing that drop of honey birthmark that Zayn suddenly wants to brush his tongue over.

“Never mind,” Liam beams, their shoulders brushing again and Zayn likes that touch too much.

He wants to know how warm Liam’s skin is without those wrinkled scrubs, across a messy bed with their fingers twisted and he wonders does that blush across Liam’s body stretch all the way down to the hard line of his cock.

Liam’s still smiling when he focuses again, this shy expression that Zayn associates with stammering boys trying to build courage to ask a girl out before a school dance and, on anyone else, Zayn would consider it _fucking horrible_ but on this boy –

It’s endearing in the most inappropriate way.

He takes in the items gathered in Liam’s arms – sugary, childish cereal, a large bottle of apple juice, a carton of milk, an oversized bag of chocolate chip cookies – and waits until Liam goes pink before smirking.

“It’s for my, well, um,” Liam pauses, dragging a foot nervously over the dirty tiles of the market, shoulders hunching until he looks small.  He lets out a breathy laugh.  “We all have our vices, right?”

Liam jerks his head in the direction of Zayn’s cigarettes and Zayn doesn’t even bother to argue.  He drags a thumb over his bottom lip to conceal his humiliatingly wide smile and turns away, Liam’s giggle and soft breath washing over the nape of his neck.

He won’t admit, ever, the way the sound and the quiet feel along his skin lifted goosebumps all along his spine but, when Liam’s not paying attention, he replaces his Red Bull with a vitamin water and his heart doesn’t stop throbbing in his ears for hours.

 

/+/

 

The moon fumbles fuzzy, giant squares over everything until it’s almost silver, bracketed by the dark shadows the high palms leave behind.  The dust and sand over the pavement glitters and they stand in front of the automatic doors for minutes with these nervous smiles waiting for the other to speak –

And _Zayn can’t_.

Not with pale blots of silver moonlight defining the shape of Liam’s shoulders and washing away the honeysuckle shade of his skin and accenting his face.

He just _stares_ , instead, because this boy is nothing like California.

Zayn thinks he’s something like London, something like rainy nights cuddled in a duvet and bitter ale and a wooly jumper that swallows you all the way down to your knuckles.

The static noise between their soft breathing and wide, wide stares is nothing but the splash of a late tide in the distance, the roar of cars crawling in this casual as fuck lazy motion past the parking lot, the crackling sound from an overhead speaker that plays dumb alternative music in and outside of the store.  It’s just a silly soundtrack to this awkwardness Zayn’s slowly falling in love with, even if he can’t name why.

But he blinks at Liam for a moment longer and the moon hides behind a few clouds, pale hexagons from the street lamps chasing the shadows across the empty parking lot and _Liam_ –

He’s every color of a slow burning fire like this – all gold, sharp reds, wavering yellows, copper oranges, hints of a stilled blue when you look close enough.

“You’re not from around here,” Liam says with a nervous laugh, the free fingers not holding his groceries pressing into the nape of his neck.  “I mean – not originally, right?  Or maybe – “

Zayn smirks unevenly, swaying to the music.  It’s not a dance, just a goofy flick of the shoulders, a subtle rock of his hips but it holds Liam’s attention for seconds and Zayn feels –

He swallows, looks away instead.

“Nope,” he replies, leaning back on his heels.

Liam nods, a crooked grin that’s supposed to look idiotic on anyone else but –

“And you?  I mean, like, you don’t sound like – “

Liam’s cottony pink lips spread wider, shoulders lifting.

“Haven’t been here too long but I thought, I mean, long enough to lose the accent, right?” Liam offers, ducking his head until the night covers the blush.

“You never lose it,” Zayn snorts, wriggling his eyebrows a little.  The wind weighs down on them, just some beat-up summer breeze that hardly chills the skin but cools everything in their blood.

Zayn curves into the touch of the gust, thumbing fringe out of his eyes with a helpless, tiny grin when Liam can’t stop staring.

It’s not obvious but it feels – _it’s nice_ , he thinks.

“Cheshire?  Or, well, London?” Zayn guesses when the silence creates a gap between them.

Loose rocks grind under Liam’s scuffed up Chuck Taylor’s, his bottom lip squeezed tightly by his teeth until all of the skin goes white.  He lets out a breathy laugh, an embarrassingly tactical move because Zayn doesn’t notice him shift closer until –

There’s just enough of a gap in the clouds for the moon to wave pretty fuzzy beams of silver over Liam’s eyelashes and that discoloring in his cheeks, the stretch of his neck.  “The Midlands,” he admits with this scratchy voice like he’s lost control over it.  “Wolverhampton.  Small little city that no one ever pays attention to.”

Zayn nods back, fingers curling tightly around his vitamin water and the sweet citrusy flavor tastes sour when Zayn thinks about how fantastic Liam’s mouth would be against his tongue.

“I’ve heard of it,” Zayn confesses in a smoke-thick voice even though it’s been hours since his last puff.

There’s a little bit of awe in Liam’s eyes but Zayn thinks it’s all the moon and the late night and the way he’s _exhausted_ from stocking canned beans all day.  It’s not the –

It’s nothing.

Liam pushes spare fingers through his hair, all of the strands tangling around them.  “Yorkshire?” Liam estimates, cocking his chin upward and his brow lifts when Zayn tips his eyes down, fighting against the abashed smile that tugs the corners of his mouth high.

“Bradford,” Zayn whispers, clearing his throat of the dust and sea salt and something else.

Something very accidental and fond.

“Been here for, like, a few years though.  Me parents moved us out here just before sixth form,” he adds.

“Nineteen,” Liam smiles, still dragging teeth over his bottom lip.  “Just before my twentieth birthday and – “

There’s a pause, an interrupted exhale that stills the rest of Liam’s words and his eyes, with their faint hints of lilac and careful blues from the moon, glance to the long line of empty rusted carts, the sway of the palms in the distance.

He looks back with a lazy grin, his chest expanding for a deep breath that Zayn almost takes with him.

“Just a few years now,” Liam clarifies and there’s nothing after that.

Nothing but space and the ocean too far out and uncertain smiles to cloud the hibernating words in their chests.

Zayn shrugs carelessly because none of this matters.  Liam’s just some stranger, a fuzzy face in the crowd and nothing more.  He tosses his empty bottle toward a nearby bin, the plastic rolling off the rim and missing.  He snorts, catches Liam’s grin in his peripheral but doesn’t bother looking back.

He sneaks his shoulderbag and skateboard from underneath the same spot he always hides it – under some dirty blanket by the picnic table that reeks of old moss and seaweed and sand.  He flicks his eyes over Liam again, biting on a smile when those cheeks burn once more.

“See you ‘round,” he breathes, saluting Liam with the tip of his board, “ _Leeyum_.”

There’s a catch in Liam’s next breath, a hesitant hand reaching out but their touches never meet.  Liam drops the hand away with a nervous grin that wrinkles most of his expression but the crinkles around his eyes, the scrunch of his nose distracts Zayn.

“Can I – “ Liam pauses, jerks his head toward a lone SUV – some faded off monster with wood paneling and peeling paint and dirty windows – in the lot, a hand cupping the back of his neck again.  “Can I maybe give you a lift?”

Zayn grins and ignores the beast in his chest that hovers over his heart until it races, _throbs_ under his ribs.

He shrugs on his shoulderbag, slides a cigarette behind his ear and toys with the flame of his lighter while watching Liam teeter from foot to foot, broad shoulders hanging loosely but there’s tension captured in his muscles.

“Shouldn’t take rides from strangers,” Zayn says with a quirk to his lips he _knows_ he’ll regret later.

But not now, not when Liam smiles stupidly under the sharp fluorescents from the street lamps.

“M’not – “

Zayn waves him off with a laugh.  He drops his board, hops on in this almost graceful leap that Liam watches curiously.

He grinds the rear of his skateboard on the ground, balancing himself.

“Besides – I like the view of the city like this,” he adds, slipping his cigarette between his loose lips to harbor his smile when Liam blinks at him.

“But – “

Zayn grins again, lowering his head and pushing off on his board until the grind of the wheels on the pavement steals his attention from the sound of his heart.  He chances a look over his shoulder, the long line of fuzzy light glowing around Liam something to awe at but he doesn’t.

 _He’s just another passing face_.

“Goodbye Leeyum,” he calls over his shoulder and wheels into the shadows to hide his smirk from himself.

 

/+/

 

Without question, Louis Tomlinson has always, always been his favorite kind of hurricane.

He’s a loud, loud twister with aquatic blue eyes – the color of seaweed and Caribbean oceans and the marina floor – and shaggy hair that’s always half in his eyes with too much scruff along his jaw and dingy ink across his arms and the kind of smile only villains wear.

But Zayn loves him, honestly.

He watches him from the doorway of a chaotic classroom and he still doesn’t know why Louis decided upon early childhood education when he started up college or why he spends every summer working at some posh daycare center in the hills but one thing is certain: he’s a volcano the world isn’t ready for.

The room is littered in juice boxes, messy finger paintings, tiny desks scribbled in Crayola, sleeping bags crowded into a corner for naps, stuffed animals and an acoustic guitar Louis never touches for sing-alongs.  The dry-erase board has a _‘Mr. Tommo’s Misfits’_ scrawled on it, something Zayn can’t help but smile at.  There’s only a half dozen children left from the day but they’re all screaming and chasing each other around a stained carpet like maniacs.

“Quiet down you feisty little twats,” Louis sighs from the middle of the typhoon, wrinkling his mouth as two children try to tie him up in toilet paper.

Zayn chews on his thumbnail, his knuckles hiding his smirk when Louis looks up.

Louis gives him a half-shrug, wrecking his already mussed hair with his fingers.  There’s a playful smile on his lips as he scoops up one of the boys with spiky hair and ocean-wide gold eyes, laughter spilling from his cherry lips when Louis tickles him before propping him up on a nearby desk.

Zayn knows Louis tries and tries to come off arrogant, obnoxious, spiteful but, with these kids, he’s _helpless_.

He loves them, really.

Zayn watches a tiny girl with soft copper-brown hair naturally spinning into curls at the ends, huge amber eyes, smudges of gold and yellow paint across her cheeks and freckles flicked across her nose.  She’s missing a few teeth but her smile is intoxicating – stained from juice, bubblegum pink lips, pushing her cheeks up until her eyes crinkle but they still catch the spill of sunlight from a nearby window.  She dashes up to Louis and tugs on the seam of his skintight jeans.

“Mr. Tommo,” she whines in this booming, giggling voice.  His fingers catch in her hair until she tugs away with a frown.  “I lost my teddy.”

Louis smirks, cocking his head sideways.  “Oh, my little Annabelle,” he hums, his voice swimming in fondness that contrasts with his usual _fuck off you stupid world_ tone that Zayn recalls from being sixteen and watching Louis _own_ their school.

“Jus’ Belle,” she pouts until Louis falters, scrubbing a knuckle over her nose.

“ _Belle_ ,” he corrects, jerking his head to the corner filled with tiny coats, backpacks, a pile of small shoes, “didn’t you leave it with the rest of your stuff this morning?”

Her face wrinkles into a contemplative one like all of his words are too big, like this world will never understand her before she brightens.

“Maybe,” she grins.

Louis nods with a snort, nudging her foot with the toe of his Vans.  “Probably,” he laughs, guiding her toward the corner with a snicker he buries in his shoulder because this is _not_ Louis Tomlinson.

The world will never know this side of him – only Niall and Zayn.

“Bunch of clueless brats,” Louis huffs when Zayn budges off the archway, dragging his chunky boots on the fuzzy carpet when he walks in.

“You’re in love with them,” Zayn laughs, hooking an arm around Louis’ shoulders when he’s close enough.  “Admit it.”

“When you admit you’ve had a crush on me two summers ago when you saw me skinny dipping in the Pacific,” Louis teases, knocking their hips together, easing an arm around the middle of Zayn’s back.  “Saw you creeping at my dick, bro.”

“You’re sick, man,” Zayn says with a rough laugh, fingers tangling up in Louis’ thick hair.  “And that was Nialler, remember?”

Louis snorts, burns off half of his laugh in the space of Zayn’s neck.

“Horan always had a thing for my cock, I swear,” Louis huffs softly, dragging his nose over Zayn’s skin, cuddling closer.  “Always wanted a threesome with El and me.”

“Didn’t you three almost – “

“That was some killer weed at that party and trashy beer, dude.  It was a complete accident,” Louis argues in this tender voice but he bites at Zayn’s neck for the anger he can’t drag up from his chest.

Zayn squirms away, punching Louis’ shoulder with a wide grin.

They watch the children chase each other around the dingy carpet, standing up on desks, screaming like rebels, stealing cookies from a carefully hidden stash – well, not really because Louis has always been awful at keeping secrets – on a tall shelf.  Louis sighs into his neck, fingers running the length of his spine and Zayn’s attention is almost diverted by the warm press until he looks in a corner of the room –

With a bowed head, the sun floating into the room and haloing above a crown of honey hair, sits the boy Zayn remembers.  His tiny fingers turn and turn the pages of a Batman comic this time, pink lemonade lips tugged into a small frown with a wrinkled brow.  He’s curled in on himself over the carpet, pressed to a wall with his knees pulled up and he’s the only one without some stain of paint on his clothes.

His long eyelashes flutter, hiding the olive-tint to his hazel eyes.  The beams of sun gap over his cheeks, over the hymnal gold in his skin and he sighs softly, turning another page like he’s stranded in his own galaxy –

Like this world refuses to exist in his mind.

“Hey,” Zayn mumbles half into Louis’ hair, nudging Louis’ temple with his chin.  “That kid is – “

Louis quickly peeks his head up, eyebrow arched.  He searches the room while Zayn gnaws on his lip and –

“The one in the corner?” Louis asks as Zayn nods, “You mean Jacks?  I mean, Jackson?”

“Jackson,” Zayn repeats slowly, under a rough breath.  “I know him from the other night when – “

“I’m so-sorry.  Christ, I’m sorry I’m late, man.”

Zayn blinks towards the door, flicking an eyebrow up when a boy stumbles inside.  His teeth pinch a corner of his bottom lip, fingers stilling in Louis’ unkempt tumbleweed-like hair.  He watches the boy, bent over with his hands on his knees, struggling for another breath like he’s run a marathon.  His loose hoodie shadows his face, shredded jeans slack on his hips with a pair of scratched up red Chucks and Zayn’s next breath hiccups in his chest when he lifts his head.

Liam swallows a few pants, chest heaving with a lopsided smile on his cotton candy lips.

“Completely my fault, Lou,” Liam heaves, tugging his hood off.  He blinks at them for a long moment, tongue caught between his teeth before his eyes go wide.

“S’cool Payno,” Louis shrugs and Zayn stretches his neck to look at him, fisting fingers into the collar of Louis’ stupid uniformed polo.

“ _You_ ,” Liam says almost accusingly but his dumb grin and white teeth and automatically stained cheeks –

from the _jog_ into the room, not from _Zayn_

– gives him away immediately.

“Hey,” Zayn says in a voice he hopes is lofty but he’s sure it’s choked, shy, incredibly _pathetic_.  “What’re you – “

Louis clears his throat crudely with a cocked eyebrow, a slow smile as he trades glances between them.  He fixes his eyes on Liam, first, grinning.  “You know Zaynie?”

Liam ducks his head, thick fingers coasting the nape of his neck, a habitual drag of the toe on his shoe into the spotty carpet.  He sniffs, his hair swooped back today – one of those surfer-damp looks that Zayn hates on _everyone_.

Everyone except this boy.

“We’ve met,” Liam replies, his voice this gentle cool but his cheeks are still neon pink, the color shifting down his neck and beneath the loose collar of his hoodie.

Louis snorts and Zayn wants to punch him.  He wants to bruise a few knuckles on Louis’ little arrogant jaw but he settles for scratching down his back instead with narrowed eyes.

“Bitchin’.  It seems so problematic that Zaynie didn’t mention meeting someone as righteous as you Payno,” Louis hums and Zayn groans quietly into his shoulder, half-turning away because _fuck Louis Tomlinson_ and he’s a right bastard.

He tugs at the braided bracelets around his wrist, chewing at his lip, trying to avoid Liam’s smile from behind his eyelashes but –

“Maybe I wasn’t memorable enough?” Liam offers with a raised brow and –

 _Fuck, I thought about you between my sheets this morning while whacking off_ , Zayn thinks, the words heavy like honey on his tongue but he swallows them.  He fucking downs them like those whiskey shots Niall loves and feels the heat race up the lines of his cheeks.

“Somehow,” Louis grins, thumbing along the small of Zayn’s back until he can’t help but look up, “I seriously doubt that, bro.”

Something warm and wide beams over Liam’s face, a little twitch of his nose, knuckles instantly crowding his mouth to disguise his grin and Liam’s still a _nothing_.

A passing face in the crowd, remember?

Just an excuse to nut off in his hand and slip out of focus and avoid everything else tugging him under the tide.

Liam stands there, shifting from foot to foot like a toddler, hands shoved into his pockets while smiling soft.  It’s discouraging – how he goes from rugged with his unshaven stubble and dark eyes and twisting muscles still visible beneath his loose clothing to a glowing teenager with stained cheeks and a full bottom lip and fuzzy eyebrows – and Zayn hates this enigma of a boy.

He absolutely hates how his heart crawls in his throat and the blood surges in his cock and everything in between is a fire without a flame.

His mouth feels like cotton and he almost, almost has enough courage to say something clever, something memorable this time but –

“Papa!” Annabelle shrieks, running a little wobbly with her summer dress – all sugary pink with white polka dots, frilly edges, hair swaying gently with her speed – billowing as she dashes up to Liam.

Something cold chases through Zayn’s blood, all of his tendons going tight, fingers scratching helplessly at the _X’s_ inked in an angry red over Louis’ forearm.  Louis exhales softly, something like an _‘I’m sorry’_ that Zayn’s not expecting.

No, he’s not expecting Liam’s beaming smile, that sweet crinkle of his eyes when he leans down to sweep Annabelle into his arms, pressing messy kisses all over her pink cheeks while she giggles.

Her voice is like a daydream, sugary like all little girls are, gleeful when she says, “Missed you Papa.”

Liam holds her with one arm, foreheads pressed together, spare fingers pulling through her hair before he sighs.

“Have a good day Belle?” Liam wonders, pressing a kiss to her nose.

“The best,” she exclaims, still giggling, still so happy.  “Mr. Tommo lemme draw on the walls.”

Liam raises his brow, peeking past her at Louis’ careless shrug, the way he tips his head back for a wide smirk.

“My parents will foot the bill,” Louis swears and Zayn knows they will –

Louis’ family is so different from his.  They’re well off, knotted together like the rope of an anchor, his parents so willing to appease him with bundles of money just for his smile, even when he seems so bent on going against their hopes of him studying medicine rather than something _‘trivial’_ – their words, not his – as teaching.

“Thanks,” Liam says slowly, dragging his eyes carefully over Zayn as his teeth nip at his lip.  Annabelle tucks her head in the crook of his neck, sighs peacefully when Liam roams a broad hand over her small back and Zayn swallows.

He fucking _downs_ everything he’s wanted to say because they fit together – Annabelle with her spotty freckles, Liam with his bronze skin, the same nose and _almost_ the same eyes and definitely the same cheeks – and Zayn thinks he’s out of place.

He’s in the middle of nowhere and he’s looking for those stupid bright lights to guide him home – _thanks Chris Martin_.

“Zayn,” Liam says, soft and unsure, “this is Annabelle – this is my – s’my daughter.”

Zayn rolls his shoulders, tries to unwind all of the stiff tendons and tangled muscles and the still oxygen in his lungs.  He pushes fingers through his hair with a weak smile, a flood of something unfamiliarly hot underneath his skin.

A _nothing_.

Annabelle lifts her head a little, blinking at him with strawberry lips and large, large eyes.

“ _Belle_ ,” she corrects a little stubbornly, Liam laughing into her hair.  “P’ease ta meet you.”

Zayn smirks defenselessly, leaning into Louis to steady himself.  There’s almost something serious about her expression, fair lashes fluttering when she looks at him, sucking on her bottom lip with this curious look like she’s analyzing him.

Like she’s weighing on whether or not to trust him.

“Nice to meet you,” Zayn says, his mouth still dry but he smiles at her before adding, “Belle.”

She beams at him, giggling into Liam’s neck, cheeks going a shimmering pink.

“Sweet little girl,” Louis whispers into his ear, fingers squeezing around his forearm until he leaves little white moons and half-crescents, “and her brother – “

Zayn falters, barely visible, sucks in a sharp breath when Liam frowns a little.  He clears his throat, thick with smoke from the cigarettes on the way over, turns slightly and his heart recognizes it before his head does.  And those clouds of charcoal smoke sinking into his lungs keeps him dizzy when he looks to the corner.

To the little boy with those hazel eyes and soft cheeks and –

“Hey Jacks,” Liam calls out, still gazing at Zayn, still a little restless under his own skin.

Jackson pushes to his feet, dusts off his clothes while crumpling up his comic book.  He blinks at all of them, glares at Zayn for a long moment before he’s running around the desks and hopping over fallen chairs.

He throws tiny arms around Liam’s leg, his head pressed high on Liam’s thigh, tipping his chin up to look up at –

At his father.

“Hey babe,” Liam says softly, leaning down to scrub thick fingers through that honeycomb hair.  He thumbs over Jackson’s forehead, down the bridge of his nose until Jackson wrinkles his face, scrunches his brow tightly.

“Good day?” Liam wonders, nudging his hip to Jackson’s cheek.

Jackson shrugs, lips still pushed into a pout.  He slips small fingers into the rips in Liam’s jeans, rocking on his heels and Zayn _can’t_ look away.

He’s reluctant, scratching dull fingernails over his stubble, staring at the three of them.  At the way Liam has one hand holding up Annabelle while the other combs through Jackson’s loose hair and how both of them cling to Liam like he’s a life preserver in the middle of the ocean.

Like an anchor.

Like a strong, loving father.

And Liam looks so young, too new for any of this but his shoulders are wide, everything across his skin vibrant like they rejuvenate him.  Like those two, helplessly in love children keep him calm in the middle of a storm.

“He spent most of the day drawing by himself,” Louis says, kicking at Zayn’s foot until he’s no longer _staring_ , just sneaking glances.  “Just sort of chillin’ around, taking care of his little sister like a good brother would.”

Liam nods with a half-smile, curling his fingers in Jackson’s hair.  His breathing is slow, tempered, just a quiet noise as he stares at Zayn like there’s something he should say.  An apology, maybe?

And Zayn feels awful at that.  Guilty and undeserving because Liam doesn’t owe him his story.  None of it.

Zayn is just a nothing.

Just an ebb in the ocean, soon forgotten when the tide turns and the swell is high and everything crashes down in a panoramic view for the world to enjoy.

Liam smiles a little wider like there’s something bubbling in his blood, this lightheaded sensation that Zayn thinks he knows but he doesn’t.  But maybe it’s that feeling coating his bones, cooling his blood, a wild heart chanting a mantra of _‘nothing really matters when he looks at you like that’_ but he’s wrong.

He’s so, so wrong.

Because Liam is a _father_ , with a wife probably, and a happy existence that’s so far from the chaos that’s scribbled all over Zayn’s life.

“Papa?” Annabelle says curiously, snuggling further into his neck with tiny hands pulling at his shirt until he looks down.  “Supper time?”

Liam laughs, this incredibly affectionate sound that Zayn thinks about feeling in the hollows of his skin beneath a canopy of stars and a river of sheets.

“We should go,” Liam says to no one, maybe to Zayn, but he looks at Louis with a grin.  “Thanks Lou.  See you tomorrow?”

“Bright and early,” Louis groans, fisting his fringe off his face.  “The things I do for a new long board.”

“Oh fuck off,” Zayn whispers, smirking even when Louis jostles him with an elbow.

“Heard the swell is sick right now.  Just off the coast,” Liam offers, guiding Jackson toward the door with Annabelle still clinging around his neck.  “Should check it out.”

“Bitchin’ dude, thanks,” Louis calls out, ignoring all of the looks the other children give him like he’s said something he shouldn’t.  He rolls his eyes with a snicker, Liam smirking from the door.

There’s a hesitation, a _‘don’t go’_ Zayn feels tearing at his throat and Liam lingers there for a few breaths.  And the blood in his veins, scorching and uncomfortably alive, shifts his cells until Zayn bites an awful mark into the flesh of his lip.

Liam blinks at him, smiling quietly.  Something unconsciously unforgettable that knots tight in Zayn’s chest.

“See you ‘round Leeyum,” he says before Liam can speak, his grin half embarrassed and one-fourth helpless.

The sun gets caught in his eyes but he still sees the way Liam blushes, his small nod, his tiny wave like the words on his tongue are too big to expel.

He won’t admit to Louis – or anyone – how he watches their shadows as they move down the hall, the way the sun loses some of its luster when they’re gone –

Or the way everything goes slow, slow in his heart when he can’t see Liam anymore.

“He’s hot, right?” Louis teases, nudging away before Zayn can swing a fist at him.

He laughs mockingly, kicking around old toys and picking up crinkled artwork.  He hops onto his desk near the window, some old piece of wood with steel for legs and it’s a complete disaster – like Louis – with its stacks of papers and cutout paper letters spelling his name across the front.

“Nope,” Zayn lies, still staring at the open space where Liam once stood.

“Fucking bullshit,” Louis hisses low enough that no one really hears.  No one but Zayn.

“Doesn’t matter,” Zayn says quickly, finding a spot next to Louis on the desk, propping a cigarette behind his ear while watching the sun make its slow crawl to the sea from the window.

“Of course not,” Louis moans, knocking their hips, twisting his fingers around the ones in Zayn’s lap.  “Still living in that fantasy that being single will help you cope with your bullshit, bro?”

Zayn smirks, presses his cheek to Louis’ round shoulder for the warmth.  “Still pretending you and El are gonna work out one day?”

Louis tenses, his chest spilling out a rough laugh.  He pinches around Zayn’s fingers, huffs a breath that feels and sound so familiar.

 _Teenage wasteland_ they once said together over a joint, some beer, and the reality that life hurt a hell of a lot less without a broken heart to accompany it.

“Can’t wait for these brats to go home for the day.  Nialler rung me up.  Said he has some killer green from some first class A-hole of a college kid visiting for the summer,” Louis grins, pushing into Zayn’s touch like he can’t help himself –

None of them can, really.  Just these little, small connections that keep them off the grid, under the radar, suspended in the middle of a frightful ocean hoping to swallow them whole.

“There’s a kegger over at Ashton’s place in the hills, dude.  Sort of stoked about that.  You up for it?” Louis asks, nudging his shoulder to Zayn’s head until it lifts.

Zayn quirks his lips, drags his thumb over Louis’ knuckles.

He shakes his head, an apologetic look creasing his face.  “Told Doni I’d pick up an extra shift to help buy Safaa a birthday gift.  Another time?”

Louis moans begrudgingly before exhaling a smile.  “For sure.  We can get blazed over the weekend while the family’s up in Santa Barbara.  It’ll be sick.”

“Definitely,” Zayn smiles, curling an arm around Louis’ shoulders.

“Such a family guy, aren’t you?” Louis teases but it’s coated in this fondness that Louis tries so damn hard to hide from everyone.

Zayn snorts, shuts his eyes against the thick rays of the sun melting over the classroom until it’s a hologynic gold.

“He’d like you,” Louis whispers, sounding cryptic and mocking but he doesn’t explain himself.

And Zayn doesn’t ask.

They sit in their silence, laughing at nothing, watching the sun pick apart the sky to add color and definition, and Zayn forgets Liam was even here.

 _Almost_ does except he can still remember the color of Annabelle’s cheeks and the brightness in her smile and the shape of Jackson’s cheeks and the fuzz of his eyebrows.

And he can still remember that sinking feeling deep in his chest when reality spat him out again.

Because Liam is a father, probably a devoted husband – everything Zayn’s never imagined having.

Well, almost never.

 

/+/

 

It’s a week later and Zayn thinks he’s in limbo.

It’s tragically beautiful – the way he’s suspended in space and weightless but still so heavy when his feet touch the ground – but he thinks this feeling is so, so much better than drowning beneath the surface.

The late California sunset throws every flammable color of orange low in the sky, the purples high and there’s a thin bar of blue between them like a haze of smoke trying to rise and fall at the same time.

Somewhere, in the city, it glitters off the shiny windows of the buildings like an elegant laser show.  Just a swirl of prismatic colors.  Just the palms and the fading light blinking like wide eyes and the heartbeat of the city coming alive.

But here, so close to the shore and the boulevards and the boardwalk – its happenstance.

He learned, at sixteen, no sunset is ever the same here.

It’s either a halo of the sun’s dying light or a smokescreen of colors when the clouds shift in or a supernova behind the edge of palm trees but it’s never like the day before.  And he loves that.  He pulls out his phone, snaps off a few shots from behind a scraggily group of trees, resting his chin on a parking meter to find the right angle and he soaks in the _goodbye_ the sun offers with the sky lit afire.

The Cantina is some shack of a Mexican restaurant just north of the boardwalk, one of those rundown places that feels more homely than the scrummy, corporate-raided diners near the city.  It’s close enough that Zayn can taste the salt of the ocean, leaning against the slab of the building with a foot propped up and his skateboard hanging ten under his other foot.

His hair is a spiked-up, inky hurricane beneath the snapback he stole from Niall months ago.  He’s wearing a loose-fitting cardigan-tank combo with the sleeves shoved high up on his elbows and acid wash jeans that have been shredded from too much wear but they fit tightly around his narrow hips and scrunch up enough at the cuffs that they don’t swallow up his high tops.

He sighs into the warm wind of the summer, picking at the threaded bracelets on his wrist, thumbing along the ink up his forearm with a cigarette tucked behind his ear and this craving for sour tequila, a long cuddle from Louis to remind him this life is just like the sunset – never the same.

Practiced fingers slide the filter of the cigarette between his lips and teeth, head tipped back to watch the pinks and ruddy-oranges swallow up the blue in the sky while he flicks at his lighter until the wind doesn’t blow the flame out.  It’s almost lit – and he can almost taste the relief in his lungs – when he catches a head peeking out the door in his peripheral and –

 _Oh_.

Liam smiles awkwardly at him from the doorway, head a little tilted, eyebrows raised and Zayn –

He tenses just a little but not from the uncomfortable sensation stealing up his spine.  No, it’s from the way he feels like he’s been _caught_ with his cigarette and disheveled look and Liam’s just so incredible under the flighty sun.  Just like this.

Liam giggles, a small shrug of his shoulders, before he’s joining Zayn against the wall.

“Hey,” he mumbles, picking the cigarette from Zayn’s lips, carefully tucking it back behind his ear.

Zayn doesn’t fight him, doesn’t reflexively punch him like he does with Niall or Louis.

He pockets his lighter, cocks his head back like a _what’s up_ , careens into the gentle brush of their shoulders when they’re this close.

“I thought that was you,” Liam says, shyly with his teeth determined as they gnaw at his bottom lip.  “I mean, I figured I’d seen you outside, well, _here_.  We were inside – “

“We?” Zayn wonders and he’s been waiting on this.

It’s not that he’s been avoiding visiting Louis at the daycare or sending Doniya on trips to the pharmacy for their mother’s medications or simply taking another route home to avoid that rundown school where he first saw Jackson but –

He’s been waiting on the moment where he’ll end up in the same part of this seaside wasted city as Liam and his children and –

A wife?  A mother?  A _something_ that means more than Zayn ever could to this boy.

“Yeah,” Liam sighs gently, fingers involuntarily going to the nape of his neck and Zayn, instinctually, stops him.

He curls his own fingers around Liam’s, a thumb flicking over Liam’s broad wrist and he feels _bloody stupid_ for doing this.  For touching this boy and threading their fingers together to drag Liam’s arm back down.

He feels like a complete wreck because Liam doesn’t tug away, only flinches a little before he grins and knocks their shoulders together with their hands brushing between their hips.

“Just me and the kids – “

 _Because my wife is working late at the office you idiot_ , Zayn thinks, grimacing.

Liam shrugs, blurting out a laugh that’s completely affectionate in ways Zayn’s certain he’s misunderstood.

“It’s always just me and,” Liam pauses, eyes lowering, a small frown tugging at his lips.  “It’s sort of always just been me, Jacks, and Anna.”

“Belle,” Zayn quickly inserts and his cheeks, they glow an ugly pink when Liam blinks up at him but there’s a thumb scratching sweetly at the space of skin between Zayn’s own thumb and forefinger and he can’t stop.

He can’t stop hoping this was all a mistake.

It was all, well, _happenstance_.

“Right,” Liam smiles, jerking his head towards the door.  “I should probably get back in there with them.  Everyone must think I’m a poor father, leaving his children alone – “

“You couldn’t be,” Zayn mumbles, tilting his chin down to hide his eyes but he still catches Liam watching him from the corner of his vision.

It floats something light and scratchy and unnerving up his throat and he presses the tips of his fingers into the soft of Liam’s palm.  He ignores all of the warnings in his mind because –

Because Liam has two children and a _someone else_ , right?

Someone other than this nothing Zayn knows he is.

The edges of Liam’s mouth quirk a little higher, fingers catching on Zayn’s bracelets, a middle finger tracing the line of veins running on the inside of Zayn’s wrist.

Zayn leans back and away, biting at his lip to conceal his smile – because it’s not worth it, not at all – and he takes a good look at Liam.  At the way his hair sits soft and pushed back, a gold crown under the burnt out sun.  His jaw smothered in stubble, an imprint of a dimple in his cheek, a pink tongue pressed to his teeth when he smiles.  He’s nothing but a plain white shirt, loose jeans, an old flannel tied around his waist, chunky brown boots and bronze skin but he’s a daydream in this lighting.

And Zayn feels like deadweight, feels forgettable next to him but Liam lights up when their eyes meet and –

A someone else, right?

 _A mother or a wife or a girlfriend or a something Zayn is_ not _still exists_ , he thinks.

“We’re celebrating Belle’s birthday,” Liam says, casually, but there’s a hidden layer between the words.  He’s biting the tip of his tongue in concentration, like he’s building bravery and Zayn smirks at him.

He hums at Liam, banks his head to watch the sun break the horizon in half.

“Sounds chilled,” Zayn replies, scratching at his scruff, dragging the wheels of his skateboard over the beat-up pavement.

Liam splutters slightly, leans in to knock their shoulders again, blinking out a smile when Zayn finally looks back.

“Maybe you could – well, I think it’d be sweet if,” Liam stammers, a crooked grin like a sophomore trying to strike a conversation with a senior, “Why don’t you join us?”

Zayn snorts, tries to disguise the way he finds this boy so daft.

He’s nothing like that handful of guys Zayn’s fucked around with – the ones that liked to kiss with tongue or bruise Zayn’s hips with their fingers or forget Zayn’s name after a dirty screw in a club or mark up his neck between blowjobs and high-five him afterwards like he was decent.

Liam doesn’t make him feel _decent_ and that’s stupid.

He doesn’t even know Liam.

“S’okay, I don’t think – “

Liam’s fingers, thick and calloused but still so warm, squeeze around his wrist and there’s a plea in his coffee-colored eyes that Zayn flinches at.

“Please,” Liam begs, quietly, thumbing the broad base of the microphone inked up Zayn’s arm.  “Just for a little bit?  It’s just us three and I’m sure they find me completely boring.”

Zayn laughs, unintentionally, shaking his head.  “You’re not.”

Liam giggles, this sweet sound like the opening bars of a summer song, cheeks a sunburn pink.

“M’not that interesting,” Liam huffs, dragging his fingers away –

Zayn’s skin stings like sunbathing for hours but he wants more, in that unhealthy way like addicts and their last breath of smoke.

Instead of responding, he gives one last look to the open flames of the sun.  He watches the seagulls, the parade of birds taking flight across the haze.  The palms sway in the wind, the coast an oil painting come to life.  He stitches all of the colors into a dreamy pile across his vision and waits a few breaths before turning to Liam with a grin.

A pink tongue strokes over Liam’s dry lips, indefinable anticipation, like the first calm breath you take after almost drowning.

Zayn maneuvers his hand, twists and tugs until their palms press together and he can squeeze around Liam’s fingers.  Until he can blink a _yes_ at Liam, an all fucks thrown into the wind look on his face that Liam beams at.

“A round of fish tacos on you, dude,” Zayn sighs, mildly annoyed by the way Liam burns coarser than the sun when their thumbs catch.

“And a beer,” Liam offers, shoulders pulled up and the shadows the overhanging leaves of an old palm create can’t really blot out the color in his cheeks.

But Zayn admires him like they do until Liam relaxes and whatever _‘someone else’_ filling in the gap between them becomes nonexistent.

Well, just for a little while.

 

/+/

 

They’re sat around a large, old wooden table in the middle of the restaurant.  The top is covered in colorful paper cloths, reminiscent of a piñata with its neon hues and complex patterns.  There’s bowls of salsa and guacamole and tortillas with rows of fish tacos and beefy burritos and Zayn keeps waiting for this moment to turn awkward but –

It doesn’t.

It feels like something he’s tasted on the tip of his tongue before – like cold, melting snowflakes in the middle of a blizzard.

Like sitting across from Liam with their knees occasionally knocking beneath the table and Jackson and Annabelle on either side of them is sort of _spectacular_ –

Because he can’t quite wrap the edge of his tongue around words like _perfect_ or _faultless_.

There’s frozen mango drinks passed around for Jackson and Annabelle with orange wedges around the rim, the overwhelming heat from the California backdraft fitting into all of the little corners of this tinny shack of a restaurant.  The air conditioning unit kicks back a quiet breeze that still leaves their Coronas sweating small pools on the table, lime wedges shoved into the lip of their bottles with breadcrumb trails of salt chasing the last occupants’ cheap margaritas.

Annabelle is bright-eyed with a flower-print sundress, most of her hair tied back in sloppy pigtails with a swoop of fringe catching in her eyes every time she giggles.  The spare lighting of the restaurant makes her glow a fuzzy orange, her nose scrunching every time Liam flicks excess condensation from his beer bottle at her.

Zayn smiles, leans into the soft wood of his chair and Jackson is –

He’s like Zayn remembers from the daycare with a bowed head, his nose wrinkled with the tip of his tongue caught in concentration between his teeth as he tries to stay inside the lines of some silly coloring placemat distributed out for the children of the restaurant.  Sunlight clips around him like phoenix wings, sticking to his skin and edging the lines of his small shoulders soft.  He blinks up, occasionally, to look at Liam or watch over Annabelle and Zayn can see the few teeth he’s missing around the places a smile should be but –

Jackson doesn’t smile.

He observes and waits and _he doesn’t smile_.

“You got coloring on your arms like my Papa,” Annabelle mentions between the noise and the static in his head, tiny fingers brushing up Zayn’s forearm as she leans across the table.

Zayn blinks at her as she tries to trace the jagged lines of the _ZAP_ tattoo, falters a little on the _‘chillin’_ stitched to the inside of his arm.

He grins, twisting his forearm to offer her more skin to view, giggling at her awe when she finds the robot.

“Oh gosh, Papa, _look_ ,” she squeals and Zayn bites down roughly on his lip when Liam’s face scrunches into a mess of crinkles and stretched pink lips and that little twitch to his nose when he laughs.

He’s got thick fingers dragging the soft fringe from Annabelle’s eyes, a warm mouth at her shoulder as he carefully pulls her back into her seat.

“Okay monkey,” he snorts, even when she whines in protest, “We can’t go around touching people’s crayon marks.”

“But they’re pretty!” Annabelle huffs, folding her arms before resting her chin on her forearms to admire Zayn from afar, blinking long eyelashes with a pout across her cherry lips.

“Yeah,” Liam whispers with careful eyes and a cocked head and Zayn stiffens when Liam adds, “Really pretty.”

He swears his teeth break the skin of his lip and he swallows half of his Corona for the fizzy, lightheaded sensation it brings, for the distraction.  He doesn’t quite look back at Liam, not with his cheeks heavy with blush.  His fingers twitch over the wood of the table but he can still see the weight of Liam’s stare and –

He’s so out of place here.  With Liam and his family.  With this uneven, vice-grip around his throat like _he shouldn’t be here_.  Like he’s undeserving of this boy’s attention because Liam’s not –

“Hey,” Liam says in this low, scratchy voice like he’s learning how to use all of the chords and muscles again, a hand reaching across the table, “You okay?”

Liam’s fingers absently catch in the threading of Zayn’s bracelets, something warm and abashed spreading over his cheeks and Zayn finally feels the oxygen break all of his cells apart.

“Yeah,” he half-smirks, Liam’s thumb edging over the skin of his knuckles, scratching dully at the bird inked along the side, “M’fine.”

Liam grins, this unintentional flutter of his eyelashes like he’s teasing, fingers dragging back but not without a little hesitance –

At least, Zayn wants to call it that but maybe it’s the smokescreen of the sunset and the buzz he’s getting from the beer or maybe it’s just his fascination with dumb luck and the way it never works in his favor.

But _maybe_ – maybe this one time.

Liam laughs in this echoing, pitchy way that travels through the room, knocks the dust off the corners.  He tugs on some massively large sombrero to take pictures with Jackson and Annabelle, grinning so wide that his eyes turn into slits and his cheeks shove up higher and higher.  Annabelle presses sloppy kisses to his face while Jackson curls under his arm, small fingers twisting into his shirt like he’s afraid to let go –

And Zayn knows that feeling.  He wonders, sometimes, does Yaser still have fingerprints up his forearm from days back in Bradford when Zayn was terrified of things like a new school or dark hallways or the way Yaser would leave them for days because of work.

Those days when Zayn learned _baba_ meant so much more than father.

The shitty atmospheric lighting dims under the tug of the sunset, the late evening rolling in fast like a tsunami.  The waiters bring out plates of tres leches before they’ve even finished their tacos, strumming happily on flamenco guitars to a chorus of _feliz cumpleaños_ for Annabelle who stares up at them with large eyes and a mouthful of salsa while Liam claps along.

Zayn smirks at him, at the way he lifts Anabelle into his lap so she can blow out the candle, smudging her fingers into the silky glaze and licking them clean.  He steals the jalapeños from Liam’s plate, lips curved around his thumb to lick the spice away while Liam giggles into Annabelle’s hair.

“I’m tree years today,” Annabelle tells him in this all too mature voice, her chin lifted haughtily.

Liam laughs, thumbing away icing from her lip.  “It’s _three_ , Belle, remember?”

Annabelle groans, bright eyes going wider, sticky lips spreading for a grin.  “Papa!  I just said that!”

Liam’s face crinkles, his smile sheepish when he watches Zayn over the top of Annabelle’s head and Zayn reclines in his chair, their knees bumping again.  He rubs absently at the smile on his lips and tips his beer back to avoid telling Liam all of the things he’s thinking.

He listens to Liam talk about schooling in America, his mates back in England, his addiction to surfing and his favorite beaches along the Pacific.  Zayn stays quiet, nodding along, grinning behind his knuckles when Liam happily goes on and on about teaching Annabelle how to play football, Jackson’s love for art, this sandy dune of a cove he loves to drag his board out to for the waves and the quiet.

It’s a feeling of being wasted on the weekend – the way Liam’s voice goes from soft to fond to cautious to all of those other things Zayn’s loved best about that fuzzy feeling just underneath your skin when someone loves something.

Like a good song you can’t quite get out of your head or the achingly sweet stroke of the sun after a long winter.

He feels overwhelming indulgent, this mild, mild throb in his heart that lulls him into leaning on his elbows and staring at Liam like he’s a foreign land unexplored.

The cheap lighting reflects off his cheeks, candy pink even in here, and Zayn waits until Liam’s smile goes from embarrassed to calm before he finally soaks in this serendipitous feeling.

“Papa,” Annabelle whispers loudly, leaning up into Liam’s ear, “Don’t princesses get crowns on their special days?  Like in the, um, books you read ta me?”

Zayn abandons a snort, buries his smile in his shoulder when Liam looks flustered.

“Well, babe, actually – “

Zayn’s not sure why he does it.  Well, it might be the alcohol or the fog of feeling a little out of place or the way Liam refuses to let him feel like a stranger.  How he keeps making Zayn feel like he should be a part of this, somehow.  The corner puzzle piece and, yeah, Zayn likes that a little too much.

He likes the way it fizzes and sparkles under his skin and he blames that feeling alone for tugging off his snapback, auxiliary fingers immediately trying to fix his ruffled hair before he drops the hat on Annabelle’s head.

She peeks up at him through the brim, head tilted far back until the shadows stop swallowing her face and he giggles at her.  It’s an embarrassingly low noise that Liam still notices and he ignores the look he receives to flick a thumb over Annabelle’s nose.

“There you go.”

She scrunches her face, deep wrinkles in her tiny nose, with a small pout.

“Girls don’ wear _hats_ , silly,” she fusses but she doesn’t attempt to tug it off.  She does her best to fix it and Zayn, fuck it, he helps her and spins it backwards until it hangs loose against her forehead.

“Girls can wear hats,” he argues with a smirk, watching the way the tiny freckles on her face contrast with the sweet amber in her eyes.  “S’cool, dude.”

Annabelle groans, puffing out her cheeks for a long breath.

“Girls are _not_ dudes.”

Zayn laughs at that, scooping up leftover cake with his fingers.  “They can be.  Girls can be called dudes.  It’s a term of affection,” he tells her like, suddenly, she’s mature enough to understand any of this and he licks around his fingers while his lips betray him with a fond grin.

“You’re nuts,” she tells him with a huff but, when she tips her head down, she’s giggling and humming to herself with the snapback still sitting unevenly on her head.

He’s picking through his food with a fork, trying to ignore the lazy smile on Liam’s lips or the noise of the restaurant or the way his heart is suddenly three-fifths up his throat now but he can’t.  He sneaks a few looks at Jackson, still quiet and unaffected, shading in the lines of a clown with his yellows and reds and blues, lips puckered and the surface of his armor still looks incredibly soft.

Liam nudges his foot under the table, startling him a little, and he glances up to catch Annabelle leaning over the table to steal a few shredded peppers with a curious smile slick over her lips.

“Careful,” he warns with the tip of his fork pointed at her, smirking, “they’re sort of spicy.”

She shrugs, smiling back, biting into them happily.  She drops back down into her seat, sipping at her slushed out drink before poking at Jackson, completely unchanged.

Liam snickers, sighs fondly.  “I don’t get it.  Like, I have yet to sort out why she fancies spicy things because I can’t stomach them.  And when her mum was alive – “

There’s a pause.  It’s like watching the slivers of a mirror finally fall apart, watching glass shatter.

It’s just a small frown that passes over Liam’s lips, the way he looks away for just a second.  His knuckles tap on the table, his expression unsteady and the air in Zayn’s lungs floods his mouth.  It burns over all of his lungs at the way Liam tries to offer him this apologetic smile like it’s _his_ fault.

Like, for some reason, he’s ruined something.

“I shouldn’t have – “

Zayn shakes his head quickly, fingers inching over the table but they never meet Liam’s.  The sit in an empty space, inches away, and Liam watches him with this gentle, gentle look in his eyes.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Zayn whispers and it’s so far from sympathetic.

It’s genuine, something Zayn knows he’s never been with anyone other than his family or Niall and Louis.

Not with strangers.

Or boys like Liam.

Liam grins crookedly but it’s devoid of that warmth Zayn remembers from weeks ago.

Still, it’s there and Zayn smiles back at it.

Jackson looks up for a moment, looks at _them_ , at the tiny space between their fingers where they almost touch and –

He looks back down, bottom lip pulled between his small teeth, the tip of a crayon pressed heavily into a new drawing.

“She was great with him,” Liam says in a soft, soft voice, reaching out to drag Jackson from his chair and into his lap.

Zayn watches Jackson go willingly, the way he curls in on Liam like, quietly, Liam is his real hero.  It tugs something awful in Zayn’s stomach, spins wildly out of control in his head and –

He’s out of place, again.

But Liam smiles at him, not Jackson.  He holds Zayn’s gaze until he feels pinned down, unwilling to fight the riptide.  He ruffles Jackson’s hair out of place, presses messy kisses to his temple until Jackson goes pliant in his arms and Zayn swears it’s the alcohol this time – this dizzy sensation and he’s _floating_.

He’s fucking gossamer and light and everything between the sky and sea before he looks back at him.

Before he catches Liam grinning with an arm around Jackson’s back and a hand sneaking under the snapback to tangle in Annabelle’s hair and eyes on Zayn like _he fits_.

And he mouths a _‘thank you’_ to Zayn that he’ll never understand – not right now.

Still, Zayn nods and smiles and, intentionally, drags the toe of his shoe to the arch of Liam’s foot to recreate the connection.

To spike the courage into Liam’s bones that he can’t replace with words, that he can’t heal with a smile but he hopes, down in Liam’s marrow, he can feel it.

 

/+/

 

And hours later, in that dusty basement of a bedroom, while lying on his back across rumpled sheets, Zayn hopes this stupid smile on his face is because he almost feels like a _someone_ for Liam.

But it’s too early to say so he doesn’t.

Still, he smiles up at the ceiling and counts the ticks of the fan above his head and pats a hand absently at the space next to him on the bed wondering if he could fit three other bodies on this twin mattress.

If he could fit them right here like a corner puzzle piece.

 

/+/

 

It’s somewhere at the start of twilight, where the sky is a feathered dreamscape of rusty oranges and the pinks are dusting off into toxic purples, that Zayn loves best.

That raw hour just after he’s recited his evening prayers and helped Waliyha with her summer reading – and he still finds himself caught in the beauty of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ like it’s the first time, even though it’s the _eighth_ time he’s read _‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’_ – where the skyline is nothing but a pinwheel of colors, the sun tucking behind the flat of the city and the stars pricking little holes into the rosy dark sky.

Just behind their scruffy house, there’s a large slab of cement covering half of their backyard.  Some unfinished deck made of stone that’s outlined by a flowerbed his mum spent hours last summer trying to cultivate.  Instead, Yaser drug a shabby old work bench onto the space and strung of a series of fairy lights and a couple of easels for Zayn to use.  Just another corner of the world that’s all _his_ , with a dozen different cans of spray paint and acrylics and canvases that’s he’s splattered in color, a chaotic rhythm to this stilled life.

He’s sat on a rusty stool, eyes on the sky as the city goes from dark to a yellowy bonfire of lights.  The cool backdraft from the sea sweeps over everything, shaving off that sunburn from the afternoon, knocking pieces of his hair into his eyes.  He dabs a paintbrush into a mix of silvers and gold, trying to capture the sharp contours between day and night on a small canvas.

His arms are swimming in an oversized hoodie, the sleeves lapping at his knuckles.  Just an old pair of ripped jeans, splattered in paint, bare feet keeping time on the cold cement to the throbbing music coming from the headphones hanging loosely around his neck.  He breathes in toxic fumes and smoggy city and that bright hint of salty caramel from the shore before shaking up an aerosol can, adding spatters of blue to some Spider-Man stencil he did weeks ago.

Zayn swallows, a pink tongue licking at chapped lips.  His eyes avoid the blank applications for University of the Arts London and Hereford College of the Arts his mum pinned to one of the easels a month ago, even though he knows the deadline is in a few weeks for the next term.  He bites at a thumbnail, eyes lowering to some lazy sketch of the hard lines from Los Angeles city buildings.  Buried beneath are silky designs of comic book characters, carefully painted portraits, half-finished ocean sketches.

He’s thought about it – _London_.

About gathering a portfolio, submitting his application, fixing this corner-kick of a life he’s been living for years.  And maybe he’s good enough, maybe somewhere his artsy shit will be appreciated, but –

There’s always a pause.

A moment where he remembers his sisters or Doniya or the wrinkled smile Yaser offers him every time he talks about the lights of London and the opportunities.  The determined look in Tricia’s eyes even though Zayn knows she doesn’t have the strength to lecture him about the merits of _higher education_.

He thinks, just near the surface, he’s not good enough.

He never really was.

Zayn bites down on a smile, tugging the sleeves down over his fingers with _‘shoes on my feet, sun on my back, soft place to sleep, yeah I like that’_ in his ears while looking down at some silly Loki caricature he doodled in the corner of a sheet three days ago.  Just some dumb reminder of Liam’s voice, the soft crinkles around his eyes when he chatted about wanting to get a husky for Jackson and Annabelle to play with, something for them to cuddle up to when he wasn’t there.

His fingers push through his thick hair and he hates how he still thinks about a fortnight ago when his foot was nudging Liam’s underneath a table, Liam’s fingers caught in the threads of his bracelets, the little smile on his lips when Zayn stuffed his snapback on Annabelle’s head –

And the way they couldn’t really say _goodbye_ outside that shack of a restaurant with Annabelle sleep in Liam’s arms, Jackson tugging on the seam of his jeans, the dark sky wrecked with pinball stars.

He focuses his eyes on the blinking city stars in the distance, a fuzzy glow of reds and whites that turn neon so quickly, a slow roll of green in the sky just before the moon flares up.  His phone buzzes in a pocket of his hoodie, his eyebrow cocking up at the unrecognized number.

Zayn considers not answering.  He thinks about chucking his phone into the evergreen patches where flowers are at the edge of the cement.  He thinks about ringing up Louis for a ride down to the shore, to pass around a joint and throw _all fucks_ about this life into the wind while they laugh in a wreath of yellow smoke.

He thinks about _everything_ until it crumbles into a pile like those balled up sketches by his feet, the drawings he hates, the ones that echo _‘you’re shit you’re not good enough you’re just_ Zayn _and that’s pretty pathetic’_ until he thumbs the answer button just to hide from each one of those thoughts.

“Hey.”

Zayn can hear the smile in Liam’s voice, the barely-there one like he’s not confident and three-fourths shy and just so _happy_ Zayn bothered to answer.

“Hey you,” Zayn says, a little hushed, chewing at his own grin.

“I don’t mean to – I mean, this is awkward, right?  I sorted that this is probably a horrible idea but – “

“ _Leeyum_ ,” Zayn snorts, cocking his head down until he can’t see his own blush under his vision.  “Just talk.”

Liam reminds him of the sea – unpredictable, unsteady, calmest when the world isn’t watching.  Just a swirl of greens and blues and reflecting everything beautiful about this world.

“Okay,” Liam says with a long exhale attached.

There’s an echo of something quiet in the background – Ed Sheeran, maybe? – and Liam’s soft breathing, Annabelle’s giggles in the far, far distance and Zayn wonders how far Jackson is from her.

“I guess – well, I sort of _begged_ Lou for your number,” Liam admits, his voice husky, incredibly embarrassed.  “Shit.  That sounds awful, right?  Can I try that again?”

“No,” Zayn replies with a laugh caught in his throat.  “Not at all, mate.”

He almost hears Liam’s smile on the other end, even when he doesn’t talk.  Just the bunched up cheeks, crinkled eyes,

“This is silly, innit?” Liam giggles, still abashed.

Still so unexpected, his breath hitching when Zayn snorts.

“Depends.”

Liam hums, a calm silence like he’s thinking things over.  Like he’s building courage.  Like Clark Kent seconds from tearing off those silly glasses and –

“Well, I sort of was wondering,” Liam starts and Zayn’s fingers tangle in the chain of some silly shark’s tooth necklace Louis bought him on the boardwalk when he was seventeen, still so insecure in his skin and in this washed out city.

“Is that a safe thing to do?  Think?” Zayn teases, teeth dragging over his thumb knuckle.

Liam yelps, groans painfully on the other end.  “Clever little bastard, aren’t you?”

“Papa!  Bad word!”

Something tickles up Zayn’s throat at the sound of Annabelle’s scolding, at the way he can picture the flush of Liam’s cheeks, the way he probably ducks his head.

“Busted, dude,” Zayn whispers, fingers twirled into his hair now.

 _Sixteen_ , he thinks, fucking sixteen and that first chat up with the girl too incredibly brilliant to want you.

And Liam doesn’t want _him_ , he knows, but still –

“The other night was fun, yeah?” Liam wonders.

Zayn nods even though Liam can’t see, bare toes wiggling over the rough cement.

“It was sort of wicked,” he agrees, looking up through his eyelashes at the dusted off sky.

The stars are like ivory fireflies caught in a web of purple.  The moon’s not quite there and the fairy lights spin over his head until they shine off all of the glossy paint blotted across canvases.

“For sure,” Liam says but it’s not very convincing.  His accent is still there and Zayn doesn’t think this boy will ever really soak in the Californian sun like a natural but Liam _tries_.

It might be Zayn’s new favorite thing.

“I was sort of hoping,” Liam adds, after a swallow, after a long minute of just their breathing, “like, if you were interested, we could hang out again?  Like, just the two of us?”

 _Like the sea_ , he thinks, ducking his head and he catches himself when his fingers stroke the nape of his neck like Liam does.  He rubs at his scruff instead, right along his jaw until his tongue can handle the weight of words.

“Just the two of us,” he repeats, smiling.

“Oh fuck, does that sound cheesy?  Or, I dunno, like a bad father?  Cause, fuck off, I don’t mean – “

Zayn laughs, the coppery sound slipping through his throat and the calm breath of another California breeze shivers through the gaps in his clothing.

“Fuck it, dude, who cares?  You’re a pretty sick father, man,” Zayn admits and he immediately wants to take it all back.

Every fucking little thing between now and that stupid drug store from weeks ago.

“Really?”

Zayn sighs, chewing at his bottom lip.  He slides a few fingers into wet paint, scrawling out thick lines.  There’s a dull murmur where his heart was, just a quiet patter that keeps reminding him this is nothing.

They are a _nothing_.

“Yeah, Liam,” he whispers, biting into his lip.  “Pretty chilled dad if you ask me.”

There’s another hush that falls between them, just the sounds of music and Annabelle singing loudly and the city around him before Liam, softly, replies, “Thanks.”

“Isn’t it a bit, I dunno, do you really want to, like,” Zayn stammers, eyes shutting tightly until there’s just a blurred constellation of colors behind his lids.  His face scrunches, fingers curling into a fist.  “Maybe we shouldn’t – “

“Just,” Liam interrupts, wheezing in a sharp breath.  “It doesn’t have to be something, well, special?  We can just hang.  A non-date.  A complete opposite or summat.  Just mates, maybe?”

Zayn grins, smearing leftover paint on his jeans.  “But just the two of us?”

“Just the two of us,” Liam repeats without a hint of confidence.  “Just two bros chillin’.”

Zayn snorts, shaking his head.

“I don’t usually chill with mates as fit as you,” he says and _fuck_.

Liam splutters a noise, a giggle hiccuped in his words when he replies, “What d’ya usually do with them?”

 _Fuck their brains out or get on my knees for them_ , Zayn muses, garbling all of the words in his larynx while tipping his head down.  His lungs contract around a breath and his chest burns like hot coals.

“Fuck about,” he finally says with his cheeks burnished a steep pink.  The corners of his mouth twitch into a grin when Liam moans and he wonders, for a second, how loud Liam could be with his tongue on Liam’s cock.  With his hands in his hair and their hips smacking like the rock of an unsteady ocean.

With his teeth on Liam’s collarbone and his cock sliding in shallowly and the sheets tangled around their legs.

“Well, maybe we could start with a little non-date?  Is that even a thing?” Liam chokes out.

Zayn wiggles his eyebrows, laughing.  “I think so.  If not, who gives a fuck?  We’re rule-breakers, dude.”

“Completely,” Liam snickers and just the sound reminds Zayn of lazy morning tides.

And Zayn wants to be the coarse sand the sea washes on.

He wants to be the place where land and water meet and, stupidly, he wonders if Liam wants the same thing.

 

/+/

 

“I swear you lot are nothing but a bunch of hellions bent on destroying me,” Louis sighs with his head tipped back, two fingers pinching the bridge of his nose in the middle of a firestorm.  “Nothing but a bunch of future criminals, fuck.”

Zayn grins from the doorway of Louis’ classroom, arms crossed over his chest while Niall stands behind him, on the tips of his toes, with his chin hooked over Zayn’s shoulder, smiling even wider.

The day’s burning off like a well-rolled joint, nothing but a starry orange glow from the sun and a steady heat with the sky an acid blue dabbed in whitewash clouds.  The tip of Niall’s nose is an awful pink from the sunburn and a day of surfing and Zayn’s wearing a loose-thread flannel over his tank, shoulders still a little tight from lifting boxes at the grocery store all morning.

He smiles because it’s just another late afternoon of bummed out suburbia but it feels like a warm winter coat, the kind that swallows you whole when your arms drag into the sleeves, whenever he’s near Niall and Louis.

“I swear if your parents weren’t as posh as they are or if I wasn’t arse over tit about – “

Zayn snorts, mumbles a laugh into his knuckles while Niall rubs the sunburn of his cheek to Zayn’s shoulder.  He loves how Louis’ accent always returns, thick and grossly underrated, whenever he’s pissed off vodka or sunk into a daydream-like high or when he’s a little too excited –

He remembers when Louis first introduced himself with a _‘Yorkshire, right?  I’m a Doncaster disaster even though me parents moved us here when I was fourteen.  But the accent never goes, bro, trust me’_ and an uncoordinated handshake that was one-half a fist bump, two-thirds loose fingers sliding together by the knuckles

– and Louis swears he’s so _California-cool_ now but, really, he’s still so British.

The children scatter with laughter, shirts and pants soaked in paint from another riotous morning of arts and crafts, and Louis sputters in the middle of the room, pushing his fringe back.

“I swear,” Louis sighs, still smiling when a choir of the Sesame Street theme starts up from the kids, “I don’t know why I bother with these buggers.  They’re delinquents.”

“But you love them,” Zayn and Niall say together, smiles synchronized even when Louis greets them with two middle fingers.

He’s a flushed mess with a wrinkled polo shirt, splatters of greens and reds and oranges across his sharply pressed chinos and his skin glistens from the sweat, a gorgeous shine to tanned flesh like glaze drizzled over sponge cake.

“C’mon Lou,” Niall grins, sliding a pair of Ray Bans over his chrysalis blues, ruffling his sun-bleached hair with his board shorts hanging to his knees, a loose tank showing off the freckled burn from an afternoon in the waves.  “They’ll be gone soon and we can catch some last minute tide off the shore.  Nothing but waves and some homegrown shit I picked up.  You in?”

Louis smirks with that deviant look in his eyes that reminds Zayn of trouble and the _partners-in-crime, dude, that’s us_ Louis swore to him three summers ago.

“Most definitely.”

Zayn rolls his eyes at them, a crooked grin pushing his cheeks up.  His eyes float over the room, something cold and stiff sitting in his chest when he finds Jackson in a corner with Annabelle nearby, humming to herself while dancing with some beat-up teddy bear, the stuffing pushing out of the loose threads with an eye missing.  He drags a thumb over his bottom lip, thoughtful, pressing into the doorway while watching them –

And they’re two halves of Liam with Jackson so quiet, shy and Annabelle so satiated in her own space.  Little specks of him with their cheeks and noses and large eyes and honey-bright skin.

And that little rush up his skin doesn’t remind him that he hasn’t spoken to Liam in days or those little anchoring thoughts about a _non-date_ that hasn’t happened.

 _Nothing_ has happened.

He clears the lump from his throat, fluttering his eyes away when Annabelle looks up.  “Where’s Liam?” he asks, absently, almost regretfully when Louis glares at him and Niall blinks behind his shades curiously.

“Who’s Liam?” Niall wonders, tipping his nose down to look over the rim of his sunglasses at Zayn.

Louis smiles, striding in close to poke a finger roughly at Zayn’s chest.  “Did you come all the way here to ask me about that single, handsome and _emotionally unavailable_ lad?” Louis inquires, something cheeky spread over his lips.  “Oh wait.  That’s _you_ , right?”

His laugh is tinny in Zayn’s ears, just background noise like the ocean in a shell when he looks over Louis’ shoulder to Jackson leafing through a few old comic books.  He’s tucked in on himself, like always, long eyelashes batting as he thumbs through every colorful page.

It swells in Zayn’s chest until it feels like a fist, until he can’t breathe and he wonders if Liam was ever that fragile.

Maybe he still is.

Zayn punches Louis’ shoulder to distract himself, furrowing his brow when Louis laughs and cuddles up to Niall.

“I thought you came to see _me_ , dude,” Louis sighs with a grin.

“I did,” Zayn scowls, tugging at the loose thread on one of his bracelets rather than punching Louis again.

“Fuck off, you wanted to see Daddy Payne,” Louis giggles with bright eyes.

“Wait – Zayn’s got a thing for someone?” Niall grins with one arm around Louis’ back and a free hand shoving at Zayn’s shoulder.  “A _guy thing_?  Bro, fuck me.  When did this happen?”

“It didn’t,” Zayn grumbles but Louis’ bark of a laugh disassembles the shiny armor he’s trying to wear for them.

“Oh, it’s happening, Zaynie,” Louis teases, fingers trapped in Niall’s sea-washed hair now.  “You’ve got a boner for the Payno and you know it.  Had any wet dreams yet?”

 _Several_ , Zayn thinks, looking away.

“Has he called you yet?  He begged your digits off me,” Louis grins and Niall giggles into his neck.

 _I know_ , he muses, tilting his chin downward.

“Thought about him eating you out or making him call you _‘daddy’_ when he bangs you up against a wall?” Louis whispers with a sinful tongue, a wider smile, a dirty glint to his eyes.

Zayn groans, blindly flips Louis off but he can’t hide his blush or the way a hand sneaks over his crotch for a small squeeze, just a little lift to the tension.

“Thought so,” Louis beams, an eyebrow flicked upward with a smugness Zayn can’t stand.  “He’d be good for you.”

“S’not happening,” Zayn sighs, throwing another halfhearted punch at Louis’ shoulder.

Louis moans, kicking at Zayn’s ankle and pushing further into Niall’s chest for security.  “Boring, Malik,” he hums, rolling his eyes and frowning.  “I think you two would – well, shit, I don’t know.  Could be fun, right?”

Zayn doesn’t answer him.  He doesn’t entertain the thought –

Except he does in the most awful way.  Just little flickers in his mind like a slide show from an old projector against a white wall – his chest spread across Liam’s spine in the morning, bare feet brushing beneath sheets, quiet and soft whimpers shoved into a pillow because the kids are asleep but Liam’s shameless with white knuckles on the headboard while Zayn sinks inside of him and –

Zayn swallows, stares into that little hint of sun from the window until everything burns off.

“S’okay Zayner,” Niall says, reaching out to thread fingers into Zayn’s hair with a warm grin, a playful look in his eyes like he understands even though Zayn swears he can’t.

But Niall always, somehow, does.

“Mr. Tommo,” some sweet girl with blonde pigtails and colossal eyes and pale skin says, clutching her stomach with a frown, “Too many sweets today – “

Louis arches an eyebrow at her, grimacing at her dizzy expression.  His lips quirk to say something but she leans over quickly, spewing stolen cookies and juice and everything else over his chinos and shoes.

“ _Christ_ ,” Louis shrieks, leaping back into Niall’s arms and that tight feeling in Zayn’s chest expands into a laugh while Niall tries to comfort Louis.

“Sick dude,” Niall says between snickers, an arm curled around Louis’ heaving chest when the little girl runs off to the hallway bathroom.  “She just hurled all over you, mate.  Like, man, you okay?”

Louis shivers, scowling.  He tangles his fingers with Niall’s spare ones, mumbling to himself while jerking past Zayn.

“Watch the kids,” he barks at Zayn, tugging Niall into the hallway towards the spare set of toilets in the opposite direction.

“Wait, hold the fuck up,” Zayn hisses, chasing them into the hall but Louis’ throwing him with a sharp glare over Niall’s shoulder, breathing heavily.  “You want me to watch _the kids_ , dude?  Like, I mean, _me_?”

Louis narrows his eyes while Niall tries to swallow a guilty laugh, his other hand cupping the nape of Louis’ neck to calm him.  There’s a _‘fuck right’_ in Louis’ eyes, lips tugging into a frown and Zayn sighs loudly, stomping back into the classroom.

Fuck Louis Tomlinson and his guilt trips.

Zayn drags his feet over the stained carpet of the room, watching all of the kids with careful eyes.  He brushes nervous fingers through his hair while a few of the children build oddly shaped little castles out of colorful Lego blocks.  There’s a scattering of girls on the other side dancing in front of a wavy mirror, singing Katy Perry loudly.  Some of the kids are bundled in a corner of the room, napping with a collection of empty juice boxes at their feet and tiny arms curled around stuffed animals.

It’s an unorganized, chaotic kingdom and the kind of hurricane scene Louis loves.

For a moment, he watches the afternoon burn down like ash from a cigarette from the window.  Just another scummy day lit by the sun and the wide sky and the palms shading off bits and scraps of the lawn.

There’s something tugging on his lungs, exploding through his veins when he looks at Jackson and he knows he’s an idiot.  He’s a complete arse because he’s toeing out of his shoes, tiptoeing around the sleeping children and spilled snacks on the floor to the crayon-marked table Jackson’s sitting at.

Zayn flops onto a corner of the table, grinning down when Jackson looks up.

Jackson blinks at him, a blank expression on his face like that first day.  The tip of his red crayon bleeds into a corner of the page before he drags his eyes back down, shoulders hiking up.  He doesn’t say anything and Zayn, unconsciously, wonders if Jackson even has a voice.

If he’s ever uttered a word a day in his life.

“Hey,” Zayn whispers, stealing a coloring book from a massive pile on the floor.  He fingers a few crayons from the box – odd names like _cornflower_ and _inchworm_ and _sunset orange_ – while Jackson bites the tip of his tongue in concentration.  “Jacks, right?”

Jackson shrugs, frowning.

Something like a crooked grin spreads over Zayn’s lips when Jackson passes him a _pacific blue_ crayon.

Zayn drags the tip over a colorless Spider-Man drawing, shading in the borders first.  “Do you like drawing?” he asks, filling in empty corners.

Jackson stays quiet, tilting his head while sketching out a palm tree, the length of a navy blue ocean.

“I love drawing,” Zayn says between breaths, straying outside of the lines while watching Jackson.  The glow of his skin, the caramel in his hair, the way his cheeks are shedding some of the baby fat.  He snorts when Jackson scribbles out a blood orange sky.

“Drawing is cool, right?  I used to do it all of the time when I was your age, man,” Zayn adds, thumbing away a _screamin’ green_ crayon to add leaves to Jackson’s palm trees.  “When I was upset it, it always – well, it made me feel good, y’know?  I was stoked whenever me mum would see what I did.”

Jackson lets out a breath, an inaudible hitch that shakes his shoulders.  His nose crinkles, fingers loosening around his crayon before he pushes away from the table.

That ache is like a ripe sunburn or the needle just before the Novocain spreads over Zayn’s ribs as he watches Jackson scuff his feet along the carpet, walking away with his head down.  It’s like blowing on a hot coal, the embers a sharp sting against your skin, the dust of heat that soaks the fingertips.

And he’s such a fucking idiot.  He’s stupid and thoughtless and –

“Hey, I ‘member you,” Annabelle cheers when she runs up to him, stumbling a little with a giggle.

She smacks her little hands on his knees with pretty pink cheeks, a sloppy ponytail, bright eyes like half-suns.

Zayn bites on his smile, shoving a laugh down into his stomach.  Her nose scrunches with another laugh, her frilly dresses abandoned for a LA Galaxy jersey two sizes too big and pastel colored shorts, ladybug sandals.

“You do, d’ya?” Zayn grins.

She nods quickly, rocking on the heels of her feet.  “Papa says you’re Zee!”

Zayn fumbles a laugh, nodding.  He remembers Liam quietly trying to teach her how to say _‘Zayn’_ between bites of fajitas and sugary cake, her tongue peeking through missing teeth but she could never get it right –

And he remembers, fondly, how sweet his name sounded on Liam’s tongue.  He remembers how his heart throbbed in his ears, the sticky smile on Liam’s lips when he caught Zayn staring, the way he wanted Liam to whisper his name into his skin in the dark.

“Yep,” Zayn sighs happily, fixing loose strands of hair behind her ear, “That’s right, Belle.  ‘m Zee.”

“You talk funny,” she smiles, swaying a little.  “You sound like my nan.  She talks funny too.  Papa also, um, too.  Sounds weird.”

A throaty laugh slips past Zayn’s lips, cheeks pushed up when he smiles and she quirks up a curious eyebrow before giggling too.  She bops between his knees, dancing to nothing and grinning with round cheeks and large eyes.

She’s like a dandelion in the wind, brave enough to take on this whole world on her own and Zayn can’t help but admire that.

Before he can say anything back, with a smile still curved on his lips, he hears a huff of breath and footfalls against the carpet and looks up at Liam heaving for air with his hands on his knees and sweat shiny against his brow.  And this feels so familiar –

Except, this time, Liam’s surprised smile flushes his cheeks a pale pink and his eyes blink into a dozen stars and a laugh spills across those bubblegum lips like he can’t help himself.

“Hi,” Liam exhales in this boyish voice, everything still ragged from his jog into the room.  “It’s you.”

Zayn chews on his lip, eyelashes batting like butterfly wings.  “For sure, man.  It’s me.”

His voice feels a little dead, that weak sound of disinterest that’s not on purpose but –

But Liam hasn’t called him or bothered to follow up on his offer and the distance between them on the carpet feels like the ocean between continents.

Liam struggles with a smile, straightening up, pushing the silly greyish beanie on his head back until flops of hair peek out.  His flannel is lazily done up, all of the buttons in the wrong holes, cargo shorts low on his hips.  Hints of skin, the tuft of hair on his chest are sneakily shown and Zayn, belatedly, thinks about licking the salty sweat from his skin and presses it between Liam’s lips.

“I’m late, again,” Liam sighs, twisting his fingers in the cotton of his shirt.  “M’sorry but, um, I had to pick up – “

Liam jerks his head in the direction of the door and Zayn swears he hears Green Day in the distance, maybe something grungy like Everclear when some green-eyed boy strides through the doorway.  He’s messy curls pulled back by a ripped-shirt turned into a bandana, a half done-up gingham shirt and skinny jeans and clunky boots that dig up the carpeting.  There’s ink everywhere on his creamy skin and dimples in his cheeks and cherry lips quirked into an easy going grin that Zayn sort of likes.

“Uncle Haz!” Annabelle yelps, sprinting away from Zayn and collapsing into the boy’s long arms.

“Hey munchkin,” the boy says, his voice this smoked-out, sleep-heavy sound that Zayn’s not prepared for.  “Where’s the Jackster?”

Jackson clumsily jogs up to Liam, tiny arms wrapping around high thigh again.  Liam grins down at him, fingers scrubbing through his mussed quiff before he tips down to press a messy kiss to Jackson’s temple.

“It’s my fault,” the boy says, shaking Zayn from staring at Liam and Jackson.  He’s got a large hand extended, one of those homegrown smiles like life’s a daydream on his lips.  “I’m Harry, Li’s best mate and his personal Jiminy Cricket.”

Liam giggles, elbowing Harry while Zayn blinks at the hand still reaching for his own.

“I’m Zayn – “

Harry quirks an eyebrow instantly, grins wider than the wings of the sun.  He wriggles his eyebrows at Liam and there’s a sharp shade of pink to Liam’s cheeks when Harry says, “Seriously?  _The Zayn_ , eh?  I’m honored.”

His soft fingers wrap around Zayn’s hand, the cool metal of his rings refreshing against Zayn’s skin.

Liam looks embarrassed in Zayn’s peripheral with a ducked head, a hand on the nape of his neck, the toe of his Chuck Taylors grinding into the soft patches of the carpet.  He’s trying to hide his smile, the way his eyes crinkle up but they’re still in Zayn’s view, still something to awe at –

And Zayn can’t help the way his own cheeks heat up, the way he sniffs and pulls his hand from Harry’s to scratch along his stubble.  The way the oxygen shoves at the lining of his lungs and, fuck, he just wants Liam to stare at him _like that_ for years.

“Harry, here,” Liam starts, his voice still a little wobbly but he drags Harry down into a headlock with knuckles grinding through his curls until Harry yelps and Annabelle giggles, “couldn’t get out of the office and that’s why we were running late.”

Harry shoves the curls out of his face with a glinting smile.  He gives a small shrug, a clumsy stumble to his step with Annabelle wrapped around his calf.

“My step-dad wants me to have a career after school so I work as his assistant at his law firm.  Just filing and paperwork and phone calls,” Harry explains, flicking at Annabelle’s ponytail until she whines.  “It’s nothing, really.”

“He’s studying global economics,” Liam teases, tangling his fingers in Harry’s curls.

Harry shrugs away, smirking.  “Minoring in criminal justice.”

Zayn nods along, watches the way Jackson refuses to leave Liam’s side, almost hiding behind the muscle of Liam’s thigh.  His small nose drags on the rough material of Liam’s shorts, the shadows dimming the tiny frown on his lips like he wants to run away –

And Zayn knows that feeling, intimately.

“You two are unbelievable,” Louis smiles when he and Niall stroll back in, a fluffy towel wrapped around his shoulders with damp fringe falling in his blue eyes and a vintage X-Men shirt, neon flower-print board shirts replacing his uniform.  “Complete idiots for each other.”

Liam grins, Harry fluttering his eyelashes like a tease and Niall gasps in this embarrassingly obvious way.

Harry flicks soft curls from his face, a practiced hand guiding them back before lifting an eyebrow at Niall.

“Nialler, this is – “

“My Friday night date for beers and a movie,” Niall interrupts with a shameless smile, all white teeth and crooked and a hand thrust at Harry.

Harry laughs, this bubbling noise with a wrinkled brow, arrowhead necklaces clinking against each other when he reaches back.

“ _Excuse you_ , man,” Harry smiles, leaning in a little.  “Who says I’m interested?”

“In guys?” Niall questions, softer, slightly defeated.

Something shines in Harry’s eyes, a little tilt to his head like he’s daring Niall, taunting him.

“In _you_ ,” Harry shoots back, tugging his hand away but their fingers twist and fit between the spaces of Niall’s for a moment.  “Or beer.  I like a good red wine.”

“Are you even old enough?” Louis taunts in the background, laughing.

Harry jostles him with an elbow, wagging his eyebrows at Niall before leaning into Liam with a snicker.

Niall ignores him, grinning for half a moment before blinking at Liam, at Annabelle and Jackson.

“ _Oh_.”

Zayn can’t swallow, can’t stop his shaking hands or the way he feels like Jackson – a runaway with a large, large world to hide in.

He pinches Niall waist to stop him but Niall smirks, slotting up next to Zayn, curling an arm around his shoulders that’s meant to be comforting but it’s not.

“Liam, right?” Niall says rather than asks, snorting when Zayn makes a desperate noise in the back of his throat.

“Yeah,” Liam giggles, scratching at his brow with pink cheeks and haphazard eyes that Zayn keeps drowning in until –

They’re a _nothing_ and a _never will be_ and Zayn doesn’t need some stupid reminder that he’ll never quite fit in here to motivate him to look away.

Except he doesn’t look away, not immediately.

“How did you know that – “

Niall waves him off, squeezing his arm tightly around Zayn’s tense shoulders.  He knocks their heads together, sighing dreamily.

“My bro here hasn’t stopped looking at you since – “

Zayn wrinkles his face, twists a healthy amount of Niall’s skin between his fingers and bites Niall’s shoulder until he whimpers.  That hint of shame burns right through him when he looks up through long eyelashes at the awed expression Liam’s wearing and he wants to burrow in the sand –

No, he wants to bury his stained cheeks against Liam’s bare chest and feel calloused fingers down his spine and that thought alone makes him shiver rather than recoil from Niall.

“We should probably go,” Harry suggests and it’s the first time Zayn’s even noticed how he’s wedged to Liam’s side, one hand around the nape of Liam’s neck while the other pulls Annabelle up onto his waist.  “You’ve got a late shift and I promised these two a pizza dinner and _Finding Nemo_ – “

“ _Toy Story_ , Uncle Haz,” Annabelle whines, tugging at his loose shirt until the tattoos on his chest shine in the dewy sunlight.

Harry laughs, pressing sloppy kisses to Annabelle’s forehead.  “Of course, babe.”

Zayn catches Liam staring at him, the way he’s biting his lips an awful red and the sun backlights his tanned skin a soft gold and the fingers he doesn’t have twisted in Jackson’s hair drum along his thigh like he wants to say something.  Like there’s words on his tongue, stubborn lips refusing to part, something in his blood burning and Zayn thinks, briefly, he loves the way Liam is still all nerves and quiet reflection and a fumbling boy trying to be _brave_ –

Trying to be something Zayn thinks he already is.

“See you tomorrow Li?” Louis interjects, knocking his hips with Niall and reaches behind him to tickle a few comforting fingers up Zayn’s shoulder blades –

And thank fuck for Louis Tomlinson and his little touches, his quiet comfort.

Liam nods quickly, shaken, stumbling out a smile that bunches up his eyes.  He fails to hide his cheeks, stained an almost sunset pink, against Harry’s shoulder, breathing heavily when Harry tugs him towards the door with a laugh.

“Ye didn’t give me your number, bro,” Niall calls out when they’re almost in the hallway with this unabashed smirk he wears when he’s a little too confident – or a little too drunk.

“You didn’t ask for it,” Harry smiles back, winking before dragging Liam almost out of view.

And he whispers loud enough for them to hear, for Zayn to hear, just a small _‘fuck dude, he’s hot and it’s about time you showed a little interest in someone’_ that echoes down the hall, just above the sound of Liam’s shameful groan.

They play fight down the hall, throwing fake punches and snickering while Zayn watches from the doorway, shoved between Niall and Louis’ shoulders and hips.  Over his shoulder, Jackson stares at Zayn, stumbling with huge eyes and those cherry lips almost frowning.

It doesn’t last long – their gaze – but Zayn feels the ice prick up his skin and his breathing slows just before the late afternoon sun swallows them up.

“Li says he hasn’t said a word since his mom died,” Louis explains in a gentle voice, squeezing fingers around Zayn’s wrist.  “Nothing at all, man.  He’s a good kid, really.  Just – he just doesn’t talk.  Keeps to himself.  He doesn’t like to be touched by anyone but Liam and, I dunno dude, that’s just him.”

Zayn gnaws at his bottom lip, something sour in his stomach and hot in his chest.

“That’s shit, dude,” Niall sighs, nudging his chin onto Zayn’s shoulder.

“She was nineteen,” Louis adds quietly, pressing a wet kiss to Zayn’s cheek.  It feels like _‘be careful’_ but stains like _‘it’s not worth it’_ and Zayn wants to agree.

He wants to swipe away the damp mark from his cheek with the back of his hand but his hands tremble and he thinks about those wrinkled applications back home.

He thinks about getting away and letting a foreign city drown everything out.

 

/+/

 

Or at least the parts that he’s not quite numb to yet like Liam’s smile and those two kids.

This unfamiliar throb in his heart that he can’t get rid of.

 

/+/

 

He’s in love with this scene:

The grind of the wheels on his longboard over the wooden planks leading to the boardwalk.  The air a damp heat like after rainstorms, that slight cool from a dying sun.  The background a smoke wreath of yellowing white clouds, the sky a blush pink in the distance.  This stretch of land dead except for a few late beach inhabitants who cherish the sight of a burnt out sky and the taste of thick salt from the last high waves.

This euphoric sensation that creeps through his bones because the day is falling away, the night sneaking in, the worn out feeling of pretending flaking off.

He does a kick-flip over the old, uneven wood of the boardwalk.  A few lazy tricks for no one, grinning down at his fingertips stained in yellows and reds from tagging a lamp post a few miles back with a Superman logo.  His loose flannel – some old checkered red and black thing that still feels new on his skin – dances in the wind like a cape, his knit beanie pushed far back on his hair with bits peeking out from the ends.

The last call of roaring birds high in the air is just a little louder than the music from the headphones dangling around his neck, just a smooth rhythm of _‘my honey and I d-doing just fine’_ under his jaw.  He does a half-arse railslide over an old pipe, grinning, and a well-timed fakie on his way to their favorite part of the city –

It’s just some old boardwalk, still wooden and rough, with an overlook of the ocean and the tip of the shore.  The deck is nothing but torn up planks, still sturdy but growing soft in some places.  Thick twines of rope act as borders, a high peekaboo of the seaside with ancient coin-operated viewfinders all along the edges.

It’s where he finds Louis and Niall, kicking about by the wooden posts that stand tall like skyscrapers with the neon sky catching fire in the distance.

Niall’s leaning over the ropes, like he always does, reenacting that scene from _Titanic_ while Louis finishes rolling the ends of a joint – it’s some dirty, sticky piece of product he probably bought off Michael, with his tie-dye hair and his vapid, post-grunge eyeliner – with a pink tongue sealing the edges closed.

“Wicked view, this place,” Niall cheers with crinkly blue eyes hidden behind dark Ray Bans when he spots Zayn.  He takes a healthy sip of day-warm Jack Daniels before shoving it at Zayn, smirking.  “Have I said that ‘nough?”

Zayn chuckles, nodding.  He pops the cap, downing a small swallow and he immediately winces at the burn – like a sweet burst of sun caught in your throat – and the taste.

He coughs as he passes it to Louis, dropping down onto the planks by Niall’s bare feet while watching the waves lap at the rugged sand.  The back of his hand catches the prickly tears at the corners of his eyes, Niall and Louis laughing together and whispering _‘pussy’_ simultaneously.

Zayn flips them off, biting down roughly on his smile.

He loves them.  He honestly does.

The sky bakes like moist yellow cake in the background, that little drop of orangey sun fading off while Louis lights the end of the joint before passing it to Niall for the first puff.

“Nothing like bros and weed, man,” Louis grins when he drops down next to Zayn, automatically tying an arm around Zayn’s shoulders while tensing through a swallow of alcohol.  He gasps with a giggle, probably already buzzing from lite beers and the surf all day.

“Nothing, man,” Niall swears, his voice tinny and thin through his first pull.

Zayn watches his chest expand, the way Niall is such a pro at this it should be a course offered in college.

He holds it in his chest, smiling with sealed pink lips until the flaxen smoke exhales through his nose and he howls at the moon hidden behind thick clouds.  It’s a halved beauty, still newborn and almost bluish but barely visible against those cotton candy clouds hovering over the sea.

Louis steals the joint back, taking short puffs like he always does like he’s terrified to let it all sink into his system.

“You’d be horrible at blowjobs, bro,” Niall tells him, like he always does, some old vinyl on a loop.

“Yeah, well,” Louis shrugs, the street lamps on the deck washing out his tan and turning him a blended ivory and silver, “Most of the chicks I go down on don’t complain, so whatever.  Not into dick anyways.”

“This semester,” Niall teases, plopping down on Zayn’s other side with a lazy smile, knocking their shoulders together like Zayn _knows_ –

And Zayn might remember some frat party during Louis’ freshmen year where they snuck off into the basement and watched Louis writhe on the makeshift dance floor with some blonde guy built like a mythological being, shiny pink lips pulled into a devious grin.  He might remember finding Louis half-drunk an hour later with his zips undone, a scattering of cherry bruises along his collarbone and the guy’s phone number scribbled over Louis’ palm in blue Sharpie.

“Fuck off,” Louis says without venom, a dreamy smile pressed over his lips from the weed.  “We all have our moments.”

“Fuck right,” Niall agrees, wrinkling his nose when a strong backdraft from the ocean uppercuts a current across their spines.  “But you’d still suck – I mean, well, you’d be horrible at giving head.”

“You’re just mad because I won’t perfect my gag reflex on your tiny prick, dude,” Louis teases, reaching past Zayn to ruffle Niall’s already fucked-out hair.

Niall shrugs but doesn’t disagree and Zayn pinches the joint between his thumb and forefinger for the first taste –

He watches the tip glow sharp against the darkening sky, eyes fluttering shut when the smoke crowds down his throat.  The sharp buzz from the cheap weed garbles everything suffocating his system and he waits until it saturates his blood before he finally exhales a thick ring of smoke.

Zayn tips his head back, sniffing at the fog while blindly passing the joint to Niall again.  The sky is starting to crackle with teardrop stars.  It’s just a circus of colors he can’t quite name but all of the care in his system is starting to deflate.  All of the fucks he’s supposed to give bleeds out through his pores and he feels –

No, _nothing_ and that feels amazing.

“Do you finish your portfolios for art school yet?” Niall wonders after a long inhale of sticky smoke, his sunglasses sliding down the tip of his sunburned nose.

Zayn shakes his head quickly, laughing at the way the world spins before he takes his next sip of Jack.

“Fuck that,” Louis grins, staining his lips amber from the alcohol, chasing his high so deliberately with the taste, “Have you even _started_ the app, bro?”

Zayn blinks at the sky, his eyes just small slits from his smile.  “Sort of.”

“Sort of,” Niall repeats slowly, a hint of disappointment layered under his voice.  “C’mon Zayner, ye know we all agreed – “

“Blood pact,” Louis demands, coughing through his next pull.

“There was no blood involved, Lou,” Zayn reminds him with a gentle sigh, patting Louis’ thigh through his skintight denim shorts.

“Should’ve been,” Louis grumbles and they don’t bother responding to that.

“What happens when I head up to Newport and Lou finally gets that teaching job in Arizona – “

“New York, Nialler.  We agreed I’m more uptown than desert dweller,” Louis argues, huffing out a noise that sounds like a hiccup but Zayn’s sure it’s intended to be a growl.

“That too,” Niall smiles, knuckles dragging through Louis’ hair until he mewls and shivers.  “But Zayn, you’re supposed to – “

Zayn clears his throat of the smoke, tilting his chin down.  He looks down at their scummy stretch of beach.  Some abandoned piece of land no one really visits with coarse sand and shells scattered like a road map and beautiful waves for surfing and –

He sighs, fingers shaking.  It’s not the first time he’s thought about living without this, without them.

And it’s not the first time every bit of oxygen in his system gets caught in a corner of his lungs.  Or the first time he thinks of being thousands of miles away, in a city he’s supposed to know, while his mum fights the lows of this stupid Lupus without him.

While the world keeps turning and turning and turning.

“I’ll do it,” Zayn promises, swishing a gulp of Jack in his mouth until the lies he’s been telling himself ignite before calming them with thick smoke.  He sniffs, rocks in place until his shoulders bump Niall’s and Louis’.

“Liar,” Louis laughs but it’s not condescending.  Not like it should be.

“Gonna make a brilliant Van- _something_ , bro,” Niall smiles, leaning in to press a quick kiss to Zayn’s cheek.

“Van Gough,” Zayn whispers, grinning.  His spare fingers twist around Niall’s in the wedge between their hips and he refuses to let go, forcing Niall take his next drag with his other hand.

Louis scoots in a little closer, head on Zayn’s shoulder with dazed eyes a euphoric blue.  His lips spin up into a dizzy smile, fingers drumming out the music from Zayn’s headphones – just some backbeat, washed out _‘relax your lips – long blonde hair I don’t know if you’re even there’_ – while the wind knocks the fringe out of his eyes.

“Calum and Luke are throwing some kegger at a beach house in a few days.  Just the usual crowd,” Louis says and Zayn knows that’s code for burnouts and cans of Budweiser but he doesn’t comment.  “You in Nialler?”

Niall blinks away, the leftover sun turning his skin orange like the safety cones around construction sites.  He smiles into the clouds of their smoke, tugging off his sunglasses.

“Not this time, Tommo,” he beams with his chin cocked upward.  “Scored a date.”

“A _fuck_ ,” Louis corrects with a snicker, his thumb running up the inside of Zayn’s thigh.  “Who’s the lucky bloke?”

“Or lady,” Zayn hums, nudging Niall’s ribs with his elbow.

Niall snorts, his smile crooked and so _Niall_ that Zayn’s heart hurts at the idea of not seeing this look daily –

And Niall’s offered a dozen times to Skype with Zayn every Saturday while he’s in London, to make visits they both know he can’t afford, to crash in his university flat with bottles of sugary rum and high-end weed but it’ll never happen.

He thinks, often, if he could settle for the occasional summer cuddle under the stars when he visits them after term is over.

He _can’t_ and it makes his hand tremble every time he picks up an ink pen to start his applications.

“Styles,” Niall sighs with candy sweet pink lips and half-lidded eyes.  He waves off Louis’ gasp and sways back from Zayn’s teasing punch.  “Just gonna, y’know, fuck about with him.  Catch a flick – “

“Suck his dick,” Louis snickers, draining another long swallow of sour alcohol.

“Get sand on your bum when you try to shag him on the beach,” Zayn adds with a wide grin.

“It was one time, you pricks,” Niall giggles, huffing through the last fourth of the joint, “She was horny and, fuck it, s’fine if I wan’ get laid under a sunset.”

Louis lunges in with a laugh, nearly knocking them all over.  “You let her ride you on some scummy old high school sweatshirt you nicked off the last lad you made out with.  You weren’t even on the _wrestling team_!”

Niall grins, eyes sparkling even under the greying sky with fingers tripping up Louis’ forearm.

“No but I pinned that dude to the mat and made him squeal into the rafters,” Niall says smugly, wriggling his eyebrows at Louis.

Zayn groans, whines into the open sky and scrubs fingers into Niall’s loose hair until it comes back wrecked.

“Gross, man,” Louis cackles, snuggling closer into Zayn’s side, “how’d you get his number anyway?”

Niall smirks, hides half of the lopsided shape in his shoulder until Zayn smiles back.  “You Facebook stalked him, didn’t you?”

Louis gasps in mock horror while Niall’s cheeks burn off a crimson color not created by the sun.  He half-turns away, his nose wrinkling before he replies, “Twitter.  Asked about, you know, the usual.”

“Quite efficient of you Nialler,” Louis cheers and Zayn’s certain he can’t live without these two dumb best mates.

“D’ya mind, Lou?  Me bailing on you?” Niall asks when they’ve finished the weed and left a third of Jack in the bottle.

They’re warm and giggly and helplessly sewn together with limbs tangled, fingers everywhere.

Louis shakes his head, shoulders pressed with Zayn until their flesh burns between their layers of clothing.

“From what I’ve seen, Styles isn’t a prick.  Decent guy.  No real career goals,” Louis replies, blinking off the last of his high while gazing at the ripple of water that looks so close, touchable but it’s just a mirage.

“Too hipster for you, maybe?  Bit of a tree hugger,” Zayn laughs and Niall pinches his thigh in retaliation.  “Good lad, ‘m sure.”

“Says he’s just doing the intern thing with his step-father to get his mum off his back.  He wants to travel, backpack through Europe,” Niall explains, stealing an offered cigarette from Zayn’s pack, cupping the flame before taking a long inhale.  “Sounds like he’s got a plan or summat.  Doesn’t really like living off his ‘rents finances, though.”

“Idiot,” Louis snickers, the sound low and slurred.

“Yeah, well,” Niall shrugs, puffing through the cigarette.  “To each his own, right?  It’s not like ‘s going anywhere, yeah?  Just another summer fling, probably.”

“Probably,” Zayn repeats and he ignores the way something acidic, toxic works through his blood because –

It’s what Liam could be, right?  Just another summer fuck.  Just an excuse to pass the time before London and distance and restarting life because this isn’t life.

This is limbo and Zayn’s certain he’s not meant to be here.

“Thinking about giving it another go with El,” Louis says under a breath, under a tropical sky with pinprick stars and a hazy moon.

Zayn squeezes his thigh with encouragement, smirking when Louis lifts his head.

“Really?” Niall hums, a wasted sarcasm in his tone but there’s a hopeful look in his eyes.  “Who’s gonna cheat this time?”

Louis rolls his eyes, dragging fingers into his twisted up hair – it’s damp from sweat and sticky from product and the kind of tumbleweed look Louis loves.

“Gonna marry that girl one day, you’ll see,” Louis groans, giggling at himself and he’s _fucked_.  Completely wasted on the weed and alcohol and the summer heat.

“What about you Zayner?” Niall asks while Louis draws little infinites to Zayn’s wrist and the air goes thick with warmth and their smoke.

Zayn shrugs, kissing off the last of the Jack with careful, paint-smeared fingers rubbing circles across the nape of Niall’s neck.  He lets the alcohol and leftover smoke burn his throat, resting his temple to Louis’ head before sighing.

He shoots Niall a lazy, glossy smile from the liquor and he knew this was coming.  They don’t keep secrets, they don’t believe in taboo.  Louis is shit at poker and Niall is a horrible actor and Zayn just – they’re all he has besides his sisters and this little fraternity they created years ago reminds him that this kind of connection lasts for a lifetime.

“What about?” Zayn laughs, everything fuzzy at the edges from the sweet mix of alcohol and the buzz of the weed.

Louis elbows him gently, groaning and biting at Zayn’s shoulder.  “You know where he’s going, dude, c’mon.”

“The fuck I do,” Zayn say with a half-smirk, watching the sea melt away the last embers of the sun.  “What’re you on about, Nialler?”

“Liam,” Niall sighs, scrubbing the heel of his palm down his face like he’s frustrated –

Point taken.

“Liam and the kids,” Niall amends, knocking their knees together with their feet hanging off the edges of the planks.  “Liam and _his_ kids, man.  Like, the dude has two children.  At twenty-two.  Fuck, I just learned to tie my shoes properly.”

“S’true.  Nialler spent all of high school in flip fops, bro,” Louis laughs, the sound an echo over the tide.

Zayn drags his fringe back, his beanie sitting loose on the crown of his head now.  He watches Niall flick the last of the cigarette into the dirty sand, blinks at the winking moon and groans into Louis’ hair.

“S’nothing.  Nothing at all, dude.  I don’t even know him,” Zayn admits and the words almost feel true –

Except Zayn knows Liam’s birthday is in August.  And he knows Liam got accepted into an intern program after finishing college in May, which is why he’s working at the drug store and constantly wearing scrubs.  He knows Liam hates spicy food, shaved all of his hair off after high school, has a scar on his fourth knuckle from boxing, loves to surf and he’s a great father.

Well, that last part he’s _observed_ more than heard from Liam himself.

And he knows Liam’s still half of whatever he used to be because he’s a single father with two children and –

He tries not to piece together the rest.

Louis smiles against Zayn’s shoulder, fingers twisting in the soft flannel.  “He’s a good guy,” Louis says after a long breath.  “Haven’t known him long because he just started bringing the kids to the daycare when he started up this new job.  Keeps to himself but he’s really nice, bro, like – too nice, even.  Sort of thinks he’s funny but he’s just goofy, y’know?  He’s one of those dads that everyone sort of likes.”

“Give ‘im a chance, Zee,” Niall insists, fingers catching in the stiff hairs near the nape of Zayn’s neck.

Zayn sighs into the wind, squinting at the moon and the silvery lining of the clouds.

“He’s not even interested,” Zayn groans, tipping into Niall’s touch.

“Fuck off Malik,” Louis cackles, his voice still dreamy and light from the booze and weed.  “He’s got a major boner for you.”

“He’s into you, dude,” Niall agrees, a little softer.  “Harry said so.”

“You two chatting about my non-sex life?” Zayn teases, nudging a shoulder into Niall’s ribs.

He can feel the heat of their skin through Niall’s tank top, the thin material of his own flannel – it burns like magic and he swallows a whimper at the feel.

“Kinda,” Niall grins, carnation lips brushing over the bare skin of Zayn’s forehead.  “You’d make a hot dad, man.”

“Seriously,” Louis beams and Zayn wants to punch both of them – or press sloppy kisses to their temples.

“S’not,” Zayn pauses, teeth biting his lower lip raw and almost bloody.  He blinks at the sky, the long expanse of deep purples and ocean-deep blues and it stretches for miles of dead space –

And he thinks of distance, London, the space between Liam’s arms that he wonders, unconsciously, that he could fit between so easily.

“S’not like that,” Zayn whispers, his voice caught on the draft.  “He’s got like, I dunno, shit to deal with.  Issues, dude.  He doesn’t need me to pile my shit on that.”

Niall smiles in this sincere way that speeds up the pace of Zayn’s heart and slowly stops the trembling in his hands.  His thumb drags over Zayn’s bottom lip until his teeth release it and he knocks their foreheads together in this childish way that makes Zayn helpless with laughter.

“Don’t we all, bro?  Sick issues,” Niall says with a humming content.

“Twisted issues.  Fucking massive ones,” Louis adds, shrugging an arm around Zayn’s neck and hugging him from behind.  “But he’s a good lad, Zayner.  The kids are great, too.  Just give him a chance.  Like, I don’t know, as a friend?”

“A _good_ friend,” Niall almost begs, the bridge of his nose wrinkling with a giggle when Zayn huffs at him.  “A sexy friend.”

“Get laid, listen to his stupid jokes, get to know him and screw the issues, Zee,” Louis says like a mantra, one fist thrown in the air with the seagulls chasing the last of the breeze towards warmer shores.

“Screw the issues, Zayner.”

Zayn wants to argue.  He wants to shove them away but he can’t.  He can’t call their bluffs and he can’t help but think of soft pink lips on his neck, careful and calloused fingers bruising his hips, and the way Liam probably smiles enthusiastically when someone actually laughs at one of his jokes –

Or the way his sheets probably smell like sand and surf and board wax and Zayn wants to stain them with his own scent.

And, briefly, the _nothing_ starts to fill with _something_ he won’t name just yet.

 

/+/

 

It’s a horrible idea, he knows it.

Under his skin and deep in his blood, he knows it’s reckless and insane.  It feels impulsive and nothing like him.  It feels like bare feet toeing the edge of the deep end, not even bothering to test the waters before diving in.

The overhead speakers in the drug store keep rotating through old 90’s music, just an echoing repeat of _‘you're giving me a feeling it's a sudden rush acting on the moment spontaneous’_ that rushes through his system and he can’t walk on steady feet as he moves towards the pharmacy counter.

He keeps dragging shaky fingers through his hair, wrecking that product-stiff quiff he can’t admit he stood in the mirror for two hours perfecting.  And he hates that he actually _cares_ that he’s wearing some loose cotton hoodie, some threadbare pullover that’s old and faded with shredded jeans and a pair of Vans Louis bought him two birthdays ago.  Or that his knuckles still have leftover paint on them, dim blues and spotted yellow running like a map down his fingers.

He smells of sweat from the skate over and minty body wash and the macaroons Doniya was baking and he shouldn’t give a shit but –

 _Fuck_.

The shit fluorescent lighting of the pharmacy with its spotlight whites does little to wash out the milky caramel in Liam’s skin.  It refuses to hide the way his hair shines a honeycomb color around the edges, most of it a sandy brown that Zayn suddenly can’t mix together in paint cans.  The muscles in his forearm twist like the ripples under waves, scratches of ink hardly noticeable now.  His wrinkled scrubs are that harsh blue like frozen lakes in the winter.  His head is bowed, chin lowered, his birthmark standing out against the sea of exposed skin and he’s humming out bits of _‘I never imagined you could blow my theory apart’_ in this sticky falsetto that makes Zayn’s heart throb.

And Zayn feels selfish, wanting to shove that boy into some utility closet and strip off those stupid scrubs just to see how amazing that skin tastes when it’s marked up by Zayn’s lips, when it’s this vulnerable and unprepared for an assault.

He wonders, helplessly, if Liam would let him or if he’d beg for slow kisses instead.

Or if this is all just a – well, _nothing_.

There’s a throat clearing loudly and Zayn barely recognizes Cher leaning behind Liam with that cheeky grin she always wears until –

She’s so post-punk glam with her hair halved and shaved on one side, streaks dyed blood red down to the tips.  Her carnation pink scrubs are such a contrast to all of the ink crawling over her skin, the high arch of her eyebrow when she looks at him.

Liam blinks up at the noise – and Zayn tries to quiet the sharp draw of breath through his parted lips, the race of his heart that he hopes Liam can’t hear but –

He thinks Liam does anyway and maybe it’s not the worst thing when Liam fumbles a grin at him.

“You’re here a little early for your usual pickup, aren’t you Malik?” Cher teases, the corners of her red mouth quirking.

Zayn ducks his head with a small smile, trying to create shadows with the hand that cups the nape of his neck to discolor the blush.

Liam gives him a nervous smile over the counter, hands splayed for support like he’s leaning in to tell Zayn a secret –

Or to give him a kiss but, no, not at all.

They’re not – they’re a nothing, remember?

Zayn deters his eyes from Liam, focusing on Cher because it’s almost easier to watch her chewing gum with a hip propped against the counter and this expectant look on her face like she’s on to him.

Like she knows.

“S’okay though,” she grins, the bangle bracelets on her wrists clattering when she elbows Liam, “’cause my sweet, sweet Liam probably doesn’t mind some company, right?  Especially someone as handsome as you.”

Liam lets out a discontent noise, a small whine that Cher giggles at and she’s leaning over the counter with intent flickering in her eyes.

“Think he has eyes for you, babe,” she adds in this put upon voice that’s half-smoldering, three-fifths teasing and completely endearing.

“Christ, Cher,” Liam groans, turning away a little but Zayn spots the freckling blush high on his cheeks before he can move.

He smirks, fingers caught in his hair again, some sort of raging bonfire in his chest like _‘does your dick blush like that when you show it off in the bedroom too?’_ but he bites the tip of his tongue to keep his words in his throat.

“Shouldn’t you be – “

Cher waves Liam off instantly, still grinning at Zayn.  “So what’s the story bub?” she hums with an arched back, a quick wink, “Are you into him?  Does he stand a chance with some babe like you?”

Zayn laughs with fingers wrapped around the nape of his neck, a thumb outlining the tattoo high on his spine, beneath the collar.  He drags the heel of a shoe over the cheap linoleum and peeks at Liam from his peripheral –

And he thinks that’s _hope_ in Liam’s grimace, the small frown tucked into his lips, those wide eyes that remind Zayn so much of Jackson, of Annabelle.

He gives a careless shrug because he’s not ready to commit to admissions like that.

Maybe he just wants a – he doesn’t have the word but it feels a lot less permanent than all of the garbage in his head, under his tongue.

“That’s a shame,” Cher whispers, sighing prettily, “Because he’s a sweet guy, Malik.  Definitely deserves something in return.  I’m just saying.”

She swivels away before he can say anything, before he can gather an explanation that doesn’t feel accurate enough.  It doesn’t sound convincing in his ears and he watches her ruffle up Liam’s hair with a grin, a small peck to his cheek before she’s thumbing through the aisles of already filled medications.

Liam, incredibly shy and nervous with his bottom lip stolen between his teeth, fits into the space Cher once occupied with this dumb grin that should irritate Zayn but –

It sort of speeds up the pulse of his heart, drags a stupid laugh from his chest, makes him feel light and airy and he fucking loves the way Liam blushes a shade darker at that.

He runs his eyes over Liam again, just to remember the shape of his shoulders and the dusted gold hairs running up his forearms and he’s got on another sticker nametag with the _‘Hello, I’m... Leeyum’_ scrawled in childish handwriting.  Helplessly, he reaches out and picks at the edges until it tugs at the loose fabric of Liam’s scrub, smiling.

“What’s with the – “

Zayn waves a hand around for the useless words he doesn’t say, thumbing the nametag back into place.

Liam grins down at Zayn’s fingers against his chest and Zayn immediately feels the unsteady flow of his heart rate between the cotton.

“Every morning while I’m in the shower,” Liam drags out with a broad smile, a rough voice that reminds Zayn of sleeping in too long, “Anna – “

“Belle,” Zayn whispers with a smirk.

“ – sneaks into my bedroom and makes Jacks scribble my name on one of these.  She’s still learning that Liam and Papa are the same person and Jacks is learning to spell, so.  Um, it’s stupid, really – “

“It’s not,” Zayn grins to himself but Liam catches it, pausing on a breath and it’s Zayn’s turn to stammer, to feel the blood rush all of his pores.

“She says Liam is my superhero name.  Like my secret identity,” Liam says, leaning back to press out all of the wrinkles in his scrubs but it doesn’t work.

Zayn giggles, thumbing at his quiff and scratching dull nails over his day-old stubble.

“Like Steve Rogers,” he says, watching Liam’s eyes turn bright and an autumn brown, “or Bruce Wayne.”

“Definitely Bruce Wayne.  Nothing against the Captain but – “

“But you’re definitely more Batman,” Zayn inserts in a voice that doesn’t even feel like his own but Liam tips his chin to smile and Zayn wants more of that.

He wants to peel back all of the layers, soften the edges, to dive into the deep end until he drowns.

Instead, he catches a few fingers under Liam’s jaw, knocking his vision up just for the way it startles Liam, leaves him with large eyes and a candy bottom lip fit between teeth again.

He wheezes out a snicker, courage building in his lungs, something cocky licked across his tips by a deliberate tongue.

“I came here,” Zayn pauses with _be brave_ imprinted across his chest in thick bold letters, “because I was promised a non-date.  Just mates chillin’, ‘member?  That was your offer, right?”

“Yeah, um, well,” Liam stammers, a reflexive hand catching the nape of his neck with a carefully knit brow giving away almost all of his hesitation.

Zayn’s lips hitch into an automatic smirk, something he can’t help because this boy is a disaster.

“Unless,” Zayn hums, turning a little, eyes flitting toward the sliding doors at the front of the store, “you didn’t mean it?  Which – s’cool, yeah?  I can just – “

Liam’s head snaps up immediately, a pinch of anxiety crawling over his face as his spare hand stretches across the counter and calloused fingers curl loosely around Zayn’s wrist.

“No, I mean,” Liam sighs, something deflating in his chest and there’s only a little confidence in his fingers when they tighten around the bones of Zayn’s wrist.  “I did.  Well, I do.  But, like – you mean _now_?”

Cher’s giggle tickles through the empty drug store and she’s right there so quickly, nudging Liam’s hip with her own while leaning over the counter.

“Of course he does, babe,” she sighs, patiently, “Get your shit together Paynester.”

Liam swallows, blinking between them.  “But I’m on the closing shift and – “

Cher groans, leaning up to press a pert kiss to his cheek before nudging him again.

“This place is dead, Li,” she says in a droll voice but the corners of her mouth quirk, giving her away, “And I can handle it.  Go have a _non-date_ or whatever you two idiots call it.”

The flickering overhead lights shadow half of Zayn’s smile when he turns it into his shoulder, eyebrows raised at Liam like _‘let’s go out of here, man, and see the world’_ and he doesn’t miss the way Cher stomps on Liam’s foot before a whispered _‘get the fuck out of here with Romeo, you twit’_ that she attaches with a wink.

Liam slips his fingers from Zayn, the skin around Zayn’s wrist sore with delight.  He teeters on the heels of his feet, shrugging at nothing.

“O-okay.  Just, um, gimme a sec, yeah?” he offers with this stutter and pink cheeks and hopeful eyes.  “I know a pretty cool place we could check out, okay?”

Zayn’s own mouth lifts, uncontrollable in ways that he knows is embarrassing.  He swears it witchcraft because his blood burns happily, his skin flecks with goosebumps and his eyelashes flutter a dozen times before he nods back at Liam.

And it takes a whole hour before his heart finally loosens the knot in his chest and he remembers what it was like to breathe _normally_ before needing the assistance of Liam’s skin on his own.

 

/+/

 

Liam’s SUV is stuffed with two surfboards, beach towels, Annabelle’s favorite teddy bear with the missing eye, a pile of coloring books, empty bottles of sunscreen, and old fast food wrappers.  It smells of board wax and children’s shampoo and this aromatic spice like old driftwood burnt to ashes and Zayn thinks of home.

They grab a bag stuffed with burgers, grilled cheeses for Zayn and fries from In-N-Out and Liam drags them onto the Pacific Coast Highway with this secret smile that Zayn’s been trying to analyze for a half-hour now.

The sky is a neatly knit together sweater of lavender and dark blues, sewn around an indigo crescent-moon that shines silver light across the dark, dark highway.  It’s empty up the coast, a naked stretch of beaches and palms and scattered land that Zayn admires while Liam’s hands drum along the steering wheel.

There is a soundtrack of shallow waves smacking against the rocks, the sea calm and a steely blue under the quartered moon, and old Frankie Valley playing low on the shitty stereo system.  The city fades behind them, just blinking dots in the rearview like fireflies.

Sugary pink lips keep twitching into a helpless smile in Zayn’s vision whenever he leans over and feeds Liam fries, bites of his burger.  The shine of the moon spreads over Liam’s cheeks, turning his skin a soft coral color when Zayn laughs in the wind ripping from the rolled down windows.  Something happy and fond catches in his throat when they share a root beer float between _Valerie_ and _Venus_ on the radio, little glances at each other like this isn’t happening –

And Zayn loves the way Liam tries to hide his grin when Zayn’s thumb drags over the corner of his mouth to wipe away excess whipped cream from the drink, eyes dilated as he watches the highway but his fingers grip tighter around the wheel like he wants more.

“You’re shit at this,” Zayn teases with an unexpected sigh that licks at the roof of his mouth, the taste sweet.

“At what?” Liam plays along, biting his lower lip to even out his smile.

“Nothing,” Zayn whispers and he doesn’t bother repeating himself when Liam lifts an eyebrow at him.

He merely kicks a foot up on the dash, slouching in his seat while the road ahead of them turns this amazing slanted grey-blue and the ocean to his right opens up to swallow the scenery around them.  Route 1 drags them through the hills, Orange County and Laguna just a blur behind them and their silence speaks in volumes just a little louder than Zayn’s heart now.

Liam’s free hand cautiously nudges into his lap, fingers curling just slightly around his thigh and he doesn’t knock it away.  He turns to the window, smiling into the wind so that Liam can’t see but –

But, suddenly, _nothing_ is starting to lose its definition and Zayn’s not completely bothered by that.

 

/+/

 

“Fuck off, man, I’m not getting in there.”

Liam shoots him a steady look from a few feet away and Zayn shivers instantly at the sight of Liam standing on the shore with the soft waves lapping at his ankles.  He looks curious, his lips sitting crookedly on his face with a cocked head and a furrowed brow.

“We’re not gonna actually, you know, _get in_ ,” Liam offers, still blinking at Zayn.

Zayn shakes his head quickly, scratches at the back of his neck, digging bare feet into the sand until he thinks he can anchor himself to this one spot.

The moon hovers over them like a cloud, rotating around dark sky and shining just enough light across the land that it looks neon.

Liam has stripped out of his scrubs into loose jeans and a cottony white Oxford, all of the buttons done up wrong until it puckers and exposes hints of tan skin.  The cuffs of his jeans are rolled up to his calves, Chucks left in a pile up the beach with Zayn’s high tops the moment they stepped onto this hidden scratch of earth.

It’s some dead beach in the middle of nowhere, nothing but high rocks from the cliffs behind them and scattered starfish, seashells left across the shore.  The waves are calm, just a shallow symphony of rushing water, footprints sketched across the sand and the remains of a lighthouse too far off to really appreciate.

Zayn’s mirrored Liam with his jeans rolled up to his knees but he refuses to move.

He will absolutely not follow Liam to his impending death.

“C’mon babe,” Liam says with a jerk of his head, a fumbled smile and Zayn doesn’t falter on that word but something burns bright in his stomach and his cock twitches, his fingers tugging his jeans up like he _might_ –

He doesn’t, though, still shaking his head and biting his lip and watching the ocean drench Liam’s ankles.

“I can’t,” Zayn pauses, eyes squeezing tightly shut until a display of fireworks bursts behind his lids.  He swallows, shaking, and the world crowds him rather than fading off.

“I don’t know how to swim, man.  I hate the fucking ocean and it’s wrong, yeah, but I just hate it,” Zayn admits after a long breath, everything fuzzy and discolored when he opens his eyes to look at Liam.  “It’s just fucked up.”

“But – “

“I once almost drowned in the fucking bathtub, Liam, I’m not getting in,” he snaps and it’s not harsh or drenched in malice because half of his syllables are clipped by that tight coil around his throat.

He’s certain he looks terrified and helpless and, _fuck you Liam_ , he smiles back at Zayn like he understands.

Like fucking Batman standing over a defenseless child with an outstretched hand, fingers curling like _c’mere, I won’t let you fall_ and Zayn wants to punch him –

No, he wants to kiss him and drag Liam into the shadows the rocks create and taste the courage on Liam’s tongue when he slides into that strong body.

“We’re just gonna walk for a bit, okay?” Liam offers, still begging Zayn forward with his fingers but he meets Zayn halfway between the surf and dead land with a dumb smile, bright eyes crinkling just a little.  “S’not that bad, I swear.  I’ve got you.”

“You don’t.”

Liam laughs, the noise carried off into the endless planes of the ocean but it echoes in Zayn’s mind.

There’s an awkward smile on Liam’s lips when he approaches, the sand clumping around his bare feet, the water chasing him like he’s some sort of mystical sea creature and the breath meant for Zayn’s lungs hovers around his throat until he thinks he’ll black out –

But, instead, his mouth curves into something like a grin and his world tilts unexpectedly when Liam lunges in to throw him over a broad shoulder.  He yelps – and it’s not manly or gruff like he hopes – and kicks his feet while Liam carries him like a fireman rescuing a victim across the grubby beach until the cool water circles his ankles.

“You arsehole,” Zayn huffs with an exposed smile when Liam lowers him into the motionless tide, shrieking at the touch of chilled water and sand squishy between his toes.

“Told you,” Liam whispers, dry lips brushing against his neck like an _almost_ before he pulls back, grinning, “I’ve got you.”

Zayn stands there, arms crossed, a scowl replacing his smile until the waves rush his calves and he feels –

 _Safe_.

But maybe that’s a trick of the light and the way Liam beams at him and he wonders if it’s just some dumb sugar rush from the saccharine floats on the drive up but –

Liam drags a loose, slow tongue over his lips to widen his smile and their knuckles brush from the close proximity until Zayn feels his throat opening up for his heart instead of words.

“I don’t think I can move,” he admits in this dead, quiet voice.

He watches the surf wash up seashells and scraps of seaweed around his feet, wiggles his toes in the sand and watches the way Liam moves in close again, a shaky hand curling around Zayn’s hip.

“It’s cool, man,” Liam promises in a soft, soft voice that trembles up Zayn’s spine.  “One step at a time, okay?”

And Zayn wonders, silently, if Liam’s referring to something else.  If there’s a meaning behind the words or some stupid try at an innuendo before he stops –

He stops thinking and tries breathing and nods back at Liam.

Liam’s toes wriggle against his in the waves, knuckles still haphazardly meeting between deep breaths.  Liam’s loose smile swallows his face until his eyes finally crinkle and Zayn shoves him playfully because he can’t think of anything else to do.

Well, it’s the only thing he can do to not kiss Liam, slow and grateful because it’s the closest he’s been to the ocean since he moved here.

And it’s the fastest his heart has gone from zero to sixty without him panicking.

 

/+/

 

They fill in the gaps of silence with small smiles, shy eyes, and soft words as they stumble down the half-mile stretch of empty beach.

The waves and sand shift between their toes, sometimes catching high up their calves and soaking the bottom of their jeans, and Zayn’s certain it’s a metaphor for something a bit deeper –

Because Liam still reminds him of the sea with his unexpected eyes, the way his smile floats, the soft and silent drifting to loud and thunderous when he transitions from talking about his favorite films to how he first met Harry.

And Zayn – Zayn wonders if he’s really like the sand.  If he looks distinct, recognizable upon sight but melts and molds under the pressure.  He wonders if he’s unforgettable like the way sand is.  If the people he meets takes pieces of him with them everywhere – the sand in your shoes, between your toes, caught in your clothing long after you’ve left the coast behind.

Liam listens intently while Zayn talks about his sisters, about Bradford, about his dumb graffiti and art school.  He smiles, shyly, when Zayn laughs about comic books, his addiction to the _Iron Man_ films, whispering about childish dreams he knows he’ll never recover from.

The rough curl of waves on the surface is just background noise to their laughter when their feet reach deep, muddy sand, fighting to free themselves with scrunched noses, delicate hands helping each other.

“And you’re thinking of going to London?” Liam asks when they’re a little closer to their shoes, to Liam’s SUV casting high beams across their safe haven –

Liam calls it his _paradise_ , his escape.  Just a dusty old beach he found when he first moved here.  His euphoria for surfing, for silence, his personal _Fortress of Solitude_ and Zayn couldn’t help the smile shoved on his lips when blush clouded Liam’s cheeks at the admission.

Zayn nods slowly, looking away.  He watches the waves, still calm and close.

“Thought about it.  For school.  To better myself,” he says quietly into the echo of the tide, licking at his chapped lips until he tastes the salt of the sea.  “But it’s a stupid thing, really.  Who dreams like that?”

“I did,” Liam replies and Zayn doesn’t notice he’s so close until –

He can count all of Liam’s eyelashes when a bare foot strokes against Zayn’s ankle in the swill.  He can pick out the two-toned shade of his blush, the faint freckles across his nose and collarbones that reminds him of Jackson, of Annabelle.  The brown in his eyes, disjointed like coastal firewood, the bits of his bottom lip he chews hardest against when he’s nervous – like right now.

Liam’s brow curves, drops a little from this angle.  The moon plays over his face, just a silhouette from the corners.

“When I was sixteen, I wanted to move up to London.  Wanted to become a doctor or a fireman, right.  I just wanted to save lives,” Liam laughs but it comes out aching like the noise is foreign.

They rock back and forth to nothing, swaying with the water surrounding them and Zayn feels like drowning but not because of the ocean this time –

“But then,” Liam stops, eyes dropping with a hitch in his breathing like he’s afraid.

Zayn wiggles a few toes against Liam’s in the sand, fingers itching for more skin to touch but they remain by his side.

“You don’t have to talk about – “

“Emily,” Liam whispers, sucking in another sharp breath like it’s the first time he’s ever said her name.  “Emily was such a good girl.  Me first real girlfriend, actually ‘cause I never – like, I never fell in love with the other ones before her.”

Everything seems louder now – the ocean, the night, the heart thudding in Zayn’s ears – and they don’t look at each other but their feet keep shifting closer and the divide grows smaller until Zayn can brush fingers against Liam’s hip if he just –

He doesn’t reach out but his thumb hooks into an empty belt loop and the connection is enough for now.

“We were sixteen and idiots, man.  We thought we knew it all,” Liam huffs with a snicker, cheeks tinting darker.  “Snogging and shagging and – fuck, we were dumb but she got pregnant and I was in love, I swear.  And along came Jacks before I was seventeen but I knew.  Dude, I _knew_ I was going to be with this girl forever so – “

Zayn’s scratching his thumb upward until it sneaks under Liam’s loose shirt, strokes at the sharp line of Liam’s hipbone until his breathing comes out like a sob.

Just this quiet whimper that makes Zayn want to crawl beneath his own skin and disappear.

“We stuck it out even if her parents were furious.  Even if we knew it was stupid,” Liam adds, cocking his head back to watch the clouds parade around the moon.  “I was almost eighteen when I knew I was gonna marry her.  Almost eighteen when Anna came around.”

Zayn stays quiet, except for the thunder of his heart.  Except for the pressure in his blood.

“And Belle was so wonderful.  She was the sweetest infant and, like, I was barely out of secondary school, right?  Thinking about university and starting up this family.  I was working at this diner and doing factory work for my dad,” Liam sighs, still smiling, still blinking rapidly until his eyes come back wet and shiny.  “Saved up enough money to get this crummy flat, some dodgy engagement ring that didn’t even shine but I figured she’d get the point.”

“Did she?” Zayn asks, nervous, his throat collapsing around the words.

Liam heaves in a deep breath, holding it like the shitty weed smoke Zayn loves, exhaling hard.  He scrubs the back of his hand over his eyes, grinning when they swell and he barely looks at Zayn before shaking his head.

“S’called sudden cardiac death,” Liam stammers, fingers twitching against the nape of his neck and Zayn watches him swallow.  He watches Liam take another deep breath.

“Liam,” he whispers, his thumb still against a bare hip, feeling warm skin getting cooler and cooler.

Liam blinks at him, laughs unevenly.  His smile comes back wrecked and Zayn just wants him to stop.  It’s like watching a pileup on the highway, a collision right in front of you that you can’t stop but you reach out anyway just because –

“It’s sort of why I went into medicine rather than being a firefighter.  Docs said it was some sort of artery abnormality.  She was barely nineteen,” Liam whispers, a little lift of his shoulders like a shrug but Zayn thinks it’s involuntary.

He thinks it’s more from the way Liam’s chest is caved in and the way he’s almost shaking but all of his muscles are coiled too tight.

“Liam,” he says, softer this time, closer with his other hand stealing the one Liam has against the back of his neck.

Between their bodies, Zayn links their pinkies, loose but still there.

Liam tilts his head, his smile warmer, cheeks smeared and shiny under the flickered moon.  His nose is a faint pink, lips chewed raw but all of his tendons go slack, something relaxed shifting through his blood.

“I had to get away.  I had to – “

The surf collides with the shore, just a slow lick of an empty wave across the sand but it almost overshadows the way Liam’s breathing slows and Zayn’s heart goes still in his ears.

“I packed everything up.  Took the money I saved up for our flat and sold off the ring and moved here,” Liam explains in hushed tones, squeezing a ring finger around Zayn’s and their other fingers twitch to do more.

But they don’t.

“California was a good way to restart my life,” Liam laughs but there’s still crystalized teardrops at the corners of his eyes, glittery and splintered.  “Just some dumb kid, with two little ones and starting up college and balancing everything horribly.”

Zayn smirks, tugs with his pinky until Liam does the same.  “Not even close, man,” he says assuredly, rocking on his heels because he – he just wants to kiss Liam and thumb away the tears and fill in all of those gaps between Liam’s muscles until he feels strong.

Until he feels like a fucking supernova on the verge.

Instead, he leans just a little closer until their chests brush and that electric shock that’s been building in his blood sinks into Liam’s hollows.

“I want to run away sometimes, too,” he offers, watching the waves over Liam’s shoulder, looking everywhere but that gentle face.  “Cause, like, with my mum.  I mean – I dunno, man.  I always worry that, when she hits a low, she won’t recover.  Like this’ll be it and – fuck, that’s some scary shit, y’know?  M’not ready for that.”

They stay quiet, the night growling around them and the stars whispering a thousand stories at once, and Zayn almost pulls his fingers free when Liam blinks at him with this nervous twist to his lips –

But Liam curls a third finger around Zayn’s and it’s just a tangle of skin, yet Zayn can’t look away from how their hands look.  The way they sit between their bodies like those silly stories he hears about a _red string of fate_ and –

Liam’s still nervous and unsure and Zayn still believes they’re a _nothing_ but they don’t let go.

They smile at each other, goofy and idiotic and the sand turns cold between their toes but their pulses pick up and pick them apart.  The adrenaline is a little too much and he feels lightheaded but he fucking loves it.

So he keeps their fingers twisted and lets Liam lead them up the beach toward their shoes, towards –

And he happily follows.

 

/+/

 

They drive back towards the twinkling city barefoot with their jeans still rolled up and sand on their skin.  The night soaks the city in the distance, smears it a burnt purple and a smoggy grey and slants silvery light over all of the buildings.  There’s old NWA on the radio, just a chorus of _‘fuck the police’_ that they laugh at and sing to each other with their fingers almost touching over the console.

Liam pulls up to a gas station forty miles out and they sneak in for ice cream sandwiches and off-brand cherry colas, grinning at each other while Zayn pays and Liam leans over to press a soft kiss to his cheek before they even get back in the SUV.  It’s a shy move, shoulders bumping awkwardly and laughter in their eyes with the Cranberries buzzing _‘all my life is changing every day in every possible way’_ in the background.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything, right?” Liam suggests with a wide grin shoved on his face when he hops in the driver’s seat, a quick shrug aimed at Zayn.

Zayn snorts, ducks his head to disguise all of the wonder in his eyes and the stain of something pink where Liam’s lips once were.

He doesn’t respond, not immediately, but he blinks at the open road with ice cream melting between their fingers and their voices mingling over vintage Beach Boys songs.  But he, absently and shyly, thumbs the excess vanilla from a corner of Liam’s mouth and widens his smile when Liam almost swerves off the highway.

His feet kick up on the dash as he slouches into the seat and he closes his eyes to breathe in the last of the ocean’s salty scent, the dead space between them filled with heavy, unsaid words that still feel –

He tries _amazing_ on his tongue and it fits like a corner puzzle piece.

Like a piece of bubblegum filling in the spaces between nothing, nothing, nothing in his head.

 

/+/

 

Liam pulls over on the shoulder a little after midnight with the world above them a sharp oxford blue, an ink-stained black and the moon high.  He’s got a weak smile on his lips, teeth twisting them and eyebrows wriggling at Zayn.

It’s wholly comical and amusing and meant to be _romantic_ , Zayn’s sure, but not with the Jesse McCartney on the radio and their feet dirty from the sand, their skin slick from the heat.

But he follows Liam out of the SUV, hopping onto the hood next to him with the high beams streaking a foggy glow over the cliff they’re parked at.  It looks sort of like the bat signal, dusty with light, storming through the clouds and calling on the city’s hero from the distance.  Zayn laughs at that as they sip their colas, knees knocking with their feet propped on the fender.  He leans back and presses all of his weight on the hand splayed on the hood to look at the stars and the wave of colors in the sky while Liam’s phone, sat between their hips and on shuffle, races through song after song in their silence.

Something odd and fascinating comes on, drowning out the choir of crickets and echo of frogs, dim in Zayn’s ears because he can’t get over the way his heart thumps like mad when Liam looks at him like –

Liam’s ridiculous smile reminds Zayn of something cartoonish, like a Disney character and it slicks this warm, comfortable feeling across his chest when their fingers touch over the dented up hood.

“My mom loves the kids.  My dad, too, but my mom adores them,” Liam admits when their silence lasts too long.  He scratches a few fingers through his hair, shagging it a little.  “But when Jacks first came about, she was furious.  She was – “

Zayn watches him swallow while sipping on his fizzy cola, letting the acid burn off that need to kiss him again.

“She was disappointed in me, you know?  Nearly seventeen and already a father,” Liam sighs, stealing glances to the blurred edges of the city.

It’s just a pile of distant light and industrial buildings and quiet streets but its smeared brilliance from here.

“Must’ve been tough, dude,” Zayn says with a small shrug, lips still loosely wrapped around the neck of the bottle.

Liam lifts and drops his eyebrows like he’s trying to say _‘I guess’_ but doesn’t.

He releases a choked laugh, narrowing his eyes at the city.  In the shadows, he almost looks like a young, insecure Bruce Wayne, the man before the cape and cowl and Zayn drowns on that image alone.

“I remember when Jacks was still crawling around me bedroom back home.  Emily was doing her studies and I was in charge of watching him every day before my night shift,” Liam grins, lips quirked into a fond look, eyes crinkling just slightly.  “I missed my formal because of that little bugger.  He was terribly sick and me mum was still angry with me for being so _‘unwise’_ according to her.”

Zayn smiles, thinks quietly, _she just wanted the best for you_.

Liam takes a long swallow of his cola, lips turning caramel and shiny against the dark liquid.  He sniffs, giggles while ducking his head.

“She made me sat at home with Jacks.  She made me stay up all night and take care of him,” Liam whispers under the current of humming crickets.  “My best mate Andy showed up at the door in a full-on tuxedo, man.  Bowtie and all.  And there I was, with baby chunks on my favorite Avengers shirt and joggers and a kid in my arms.”

There’s a taste of regret in Liam’s words but not because of Jackson.

It feels like – something’s missing.

Liam grins, again, still watching the city in its slumber.  Their pinkies brush in the hollow of a dent, an unconscious motion that spreads this embarrassingly bright feeling up Zayn’s forearm and straight to his heart.

“Never even had a first dance.  Fucking pathetic,” Liam snickers, knees pulling up to rest his forearms over them.  “My mates back home still think I’m an idiot for doing all of this.  Being a dad, ditching England for the surf and college.  Doing it all alone.”

Something lights up in the middle of Zayn’s chest, a thought scratching over his mind and he knows this is insane.  It’s _ridiculous_ is what it is but he follows the momentum, the propelling heart in his chest that won’t quit and since when did _Leeyum Payne_ become this loud, loud chant in his head?

He’s not sure and he doesn’t bother to answer all of the questions in his head because Liam’s biting down the center of his bottom lip until it’s almost bloody and Zayn thinks that alone is too much.

He thinks he’s a little too desperate and completely unreasonable but he leans in until his dry lips catch against Liam’s bare neck, just under his jaw, just to whisper, “C’mon.”

Liam stares at him with wide, wide eyes when Zayn hops off the hood, dusting off his jeans and grinning like a school kid seconds away from the playground.  His fingers curl at Liam, lips patiently repeating _c’mon, c’mon_ until Liam blinks three times, rapidly, and a crooked smile lifts over his lips.  Zayn’s cheeks flush but he refuses to retreat, stretching his arm to help Liam off the hood with their fingers tangling and a song he doesn’t completely know haunting them from Liam’s phone.

“I’m shit at this,” Zayn warns, still smirking, still squeezing around Liam’s fingers as they move in close.  “Don’t really know what I’m doing but – “

The words trail off in the quiet breeze.  Their hands fit together, palm to palm, and Zayn cheats to curve his spare fingers around Liam’s hip.  He thinks of the dozens of times Doniya forced him to watch _Dirty Dancing_ , trying to find the proper stance and Liam laughs into the hollow of his neck when their chests press together and their hips barely brush.

Goosebumps spread up Liam’s arm, the sleeves of his shirt still pushed up to his elbows so that Zayn can look at the freckles and dark ink.  There’s a whisper of _‘I find it strange that you’re wandering in this place’_ that’s fuzzy in his ears but he follows it, his thumb skimming over Liam’s knuckles.

“Alright?”

Liam giggles next to his ear, this helplessly beautiful noise that chases a shiver around Zayn’s spine.

“Alright,” he repeats and Zayn takes the cue.

He starts awkwardly, trying to lead Liam as they dance in large circles in front of the SUV.  The high beams create their silhouette and Zayn watches their shadows on the dirt, their clumsy stumbling through this.

It’s awful.

They step on each other’s feet, laughing, squeezing tighter into each other with Liam’s lips spreading warmth over Zayn’s throat.  Just his laughter, his hushed _‘I thought it’d changed but the more it stays the same’_ until the pink of Zayn’s cheeks storms down his neck and collar.

Zayn knows they look terrible, still stumbling and awkward in ways he imagines all teenagers are the first time.  But he doesn’t dance and never went to his own prom – smoking behind the school with beers wrapped in brown paper bags and some pretty girl in a black dress on her knees for him doesn’t exactly count, nor does the smeared red lipstick on his dick afterwards or the way he kissed her cheek like _‘you did good’_ before he helped her get off on his fingers – and he can’t help but feel like part of this is for him too.

A small part but the breath of laughter against his shoulder and Liam’s crinkled eyes in the corner of his vision brightens the star in the pit of his stomach.

“You are horrible,” Liam teases but follows the beat of the music, spinning them on an axis with a breathy giggle, cheeks a shiny pink.  “Absolute shite, man.”

“Shut it,” Zayn laughs but he relinquishes control to Liam, lets him lead their feet.

They still stumble and collide but it’s a little more perfected.  It’s synchronized and the sort of clumsiness you feel when you’re drunk rather than trying too hard.

And all Zayn can hear is _‘which one of us will look away say the words that we don’t say’_ in his ears when Liam draws back to grin at him.

“Here,” Liam whispers between their crinkled eyes and wrinkled noses and embarrassingly blissful smiles, “just lemme – “

He’s sure Liam’s eyes aren’t meant to be a distraction, or the way his teeth pick at a corner of his bottom lip but his knuckles go white from the tight grip he has around Liam’s hand and the way they find their own rhythm that’s completely out of tune with the music but –

 _Wow_.

Zayn is infatuated with the way they are their own black hole in the middle of a galaxy of stars.

His heart sits firmly in his throat, comfy and immovable, and the _‘some things are made yeah they’re made to never separate oh then you’re face to face with it you don’t hesitate’_ keeps following them in the dirt and scattered rocks around their feet.  He leans in just to brush his nose over Liam’s shoulder, against that spotty birthmark.

Liam smells of all of the things Zayn’s never loved until now – pineapple surf wax, salt water taffy, sand, the sharp salty tang of the ocean, drizzled caramel – and Zayn shuts his eyes until the world around them darkens.

He presses his face into Liam’s neck with a hand on the small of his back and he has so much to say.  So many stories about Doniya and his family back home and his fear of the ocean and his artwork, his mum.

But he stays quiet, listens to Liam whisper _‘have I been taken by you one more time’_ and _‘it’s like we never looked into each other’s eyes’_ along with _‘no one here is saying it’s wrong’_ until he feels as calm as the waves they left behind.

“Wicked first non-date, right?” Liam says into the shell of his ear, the bristles of his stubble tickling high on Zayn’s cheek.

“Almost didn’t happen.”

There’s a whine in the back of Liam’s throat that Zayn grins at and this unhealthy pressure on his spine from Liam’s fingers but he doesn’t tug away.

He keeps his eyes closed, mouthing to the _‘I’m one heartbeat away from missing you again I’m missing you again’_ in the distance and Liam laughs into his hair because they’ve run out of words to say for now.

Just for now, he hopes.

 

/+/

 

The hazy, purple skyline is splattered in bright reds, neon greens, electric blues, glittery whites, harsh tangerine fireworks over their scruffy beach.  It’s an explosion of colors, a screaming inferno just after twilight.  Crackled noise like fire snapping, the whirl just before grenades combusting and their little island paradise is stuffed with half-drunken college kids, scattered teenagers intoxicated on the summer, children chasing the surf back into the ocean and it’s nearly magical.

Zayn’s never understood the traditions of fireworks and alcohol on the Fourth but he doesn’t deny it, every year, when Niall and Louis drag him down to the sand with lazy smiles and the sky a war of lights.

But this year –

It’s wet sand from the late tide between his bare toes, some sticky-warm feeling in his lungs.  There’s a Corona pinched between his thumb and forefinger, the cuffs of his jeans soaked from the brush of water that keeps lapping his ankles.  There’s a strong shoulder brushing his in the echo of shrieking colors in the dark sky, Liam grinning at the explosions that last forever.

Annabelle is chasing the low tide back into the quiet ocean with a patriotic ice lolly between her tiny fingers, giggling happily in her sundress with her quirked mouth stained ruby and soft blues.  Harry’s curled around Jackson in the sand, helping him twirl a sparkler towards the smoked out sky with a half-smile on Jackson’s pink lips.

Niall and Louis are chasing some gas station glow-in-the-dark Frisbee across the grungy sand, howling into the night and dizzily giddy from their stolen shots of low-end whiskey stored in some old, scratched up flask.  Eleanor’s gathered around a fire pit with some kids Zayn remembers from high school but never paid attention to –

the _in-crowd_ with their Beverly Hills clothes and Rodeo Drive bank accounts and the kind of false laughs that Zayn hates

– and Liam –

The twinkling light from dying fireworks shines off Liam’s face, the orangey glow from the nearby fire dusting shadows from his eyelashes, from the stubble across his jaw.  He’s got bright eyes, a warm smile across dangerously pink lips, little crinkles that keep forming near his eyes whenever he grins too hard at Zayn.

He’s wrapped up in a comfy hoodie, his hair wrecked from an earlier surf, a beer sitting loose between his fingers and some safari-print board shorts tugged low on his hips.  It’s so plain and _completely California_ but Zayn –

Zayn loves the way he’s still so _Liam_ underneath all of the layers and smiles and crinkled up eyes.

“S’nice out, right?” Liam asks, low and smoky even if it’s not intentional.

Zayn grins, nodding before sipping on his beer.  “For sure.”

“Right on,” Liam hums, the crackling fireworks overhead just a quiet soundtrack to the way their shoulders, their free knuckles, their toes keep brushing unintentionally – or maybe purposefully but Zayn won’t admit that now – in the stillness.

Zayn cocks an eyebrow at him when Liam casually steps in closer, shrugs an arm around Zayn’s loose shoulders.  His fingers rub gently at Zayn’s chest through his unbuttoned flannel.

“This okay?” Liam whispers, the corners of his mouth already quirking when Zayn doesn’t tug away.

Zayn snorts, lips wrapped carefully around the lip of the bottle.  He goes for careless, noncommittal with his shrug but his body gently leans into the warmth of Liam’s hoodie and he’s _fucked_.

He’s completely lost on this stupid boy’s eyes and his nervous smile and the way he keeps biting at the tip of his tongue like words are threatening to spill out.

Zayn ignores it all, watching the way the blaring fireworks stick to the sky like morning dew, until Liam’s chapped lips accidentally skim his neck on the way to his ear.

“Doesn’t mean anything, right?  Just, like, just some dudes,” Liam says with a smile Zayn can feel against the shell of his ear, “Just mates, man.”

“Just mates,” Zayn repeats, taking another swallow of his beer.

“S’nothing,” Liam giggles but his nose nuzzles to Zayn’s cheek and his arm squeezes around Zayn until they’re pressed together.

“Who gives a fuck, right?” Zayn laughs but that sensitive brush of lips on his neck, the rapid pulse of his heart just under Liam’s bottom lip leaves him helpless for a second.

“So it’s cool if, like, I’m here?” Liam wonders, a shamefully shy grin pressed to Zayn’s neck.

Zayn blurts another laugh, shaking his head.  He nudges a foot to Liam’s, presses back into Liam until his arm circles Zayn’s chest and hovers just over his heart, fingertips counting out the pulses.

“I invited you, didn’t I?”

“Technically,” Liam says with this giant smirk and a thumb caressing the exposed skin stitched in ink under Zayn’s collarbone, “Lou called me up.  Said something about Niall and Harry and tradition and maybe – “

Zayn drowns out the rest with the noise from someone’s iPod on shuffle, this little chant of ‘ _and when you hold my hand, I feel the spark again’_ in his ears just before a little smile twitches over his lips.

“I might’ve suggested it,” he admits, his voice gravelly and incredibly embarrassed.

“Because,” Liam hums, nudging a thumb under Zayn’s chin and there’s a little anticipation shining in his eyes when Zayn looks at him.

Zayn shrugs, trying to hide his smile with his beer.  “Figured Jacks and Belle would like it out here.”

Liam nods but there’s this euphoric glow in his grin.

Zayn wants to kiss him.

Instead, he watches the gritty waves chase up the shore and splash against Annabelle’s ankles as she stumbles away with laughter.  He focuses on the way Jackson’s chewing his bottom lip, blinking at the sky, still so quiet.

He grins at Niall and Louis, arms curled around each other, giggling into their necks with this punch drunk feeling that Zayn knows so well and –

“I thought it’d be sort of wicked to see you again,” he says so low that he almost doesn’t hear it but Liam curves a finger under his chin again, a thumb to his jaw with crinkled eyes and –

It’s so deliberately slow that Zayn’s reflexes freeze.  Just a smile pressed to Zayn’s lips before it turns into a kiss, a careful and uncertain one that Zayn whines at.  He squeezes around the perspiring bottled beer between his fingers and nudges up into Liam and it’s such an awkward angle but Liam makes it work.

He kisses like he remembers how to and Zayn wonders if he’s the first kiss Liam has had since –

Zayn bats the thoughts away, anchoring himself to the sand because he feels like he’s fucking _floating_ –

it sounds so stupid and ridiculous in his head but it’s so, so true

– and Liam laughs into the brush of Zayn’s lips when he finally kisses back.

The world is a white noise and ocean sounds when Liam’s lips part and Zayn sneaks his tongue in immediately.  He licks at Liam’s canines and tastes the flood of sour beer, the grape bubblegum he was chewing earlier, hints of spicy coffee he drank in the morning.  He sniffs at that familiar scent of Liam – it’s all board wax and salt water taffy and grossly strong mint body wash that Zayn wants all over him – and half turns while stepping up on his toes to flick his tongue against the roof of Liam’s mouth.

Liam pulls away first but not without their noses brushing, a quick peck to Zayn’s swollen lips with laughter in his eyes and ruddy lips spread into a smile.

“Not bad,” he teases and Zayn groans because Liam’s cocky and his eyes are dark and his tongue swipes over his lips to taste Zayn again –

 _Oh_.

Zayn feels breathless and he presses their foreheads together with spare fingers brushing underneath the hem of Liam’s hoodie to try and find skin until –

“Papa!” Annabelle barks in this admonishing tone with her tiny fists on her hips, a sharp scowl thrown at them.  “No smooching boys ‘til you’re old ‘nough!  S’what you tol’ me.”

Zayn laughs into Liam’s neck because she’s too adorable to look at with her pout and tilted head and wrinkled nose at them.  Her ice lolly has melted away, fingers sticky and colorful and her bare feet tapping against wet sand like she’s disappointed but she giggles when Liam grins at her.

“Sorry,” he mumbles to Liam but fingertips squeeze his hip tight and he thinks of kissing Liam again.

“She’s a menace,” Liam swears with a laugh, the sharp bristles of his scruff dragging against Zayn’s temple.  He turns a little to Annabelle, still clutching Zayn loosely with one arm.  “I’m sorry, babe.  Won’t happen again.”

“It’s gross,” she huffs, running off in a fit of giggles and pigtails and the surf follows her up the sand towards Harry and Jackson.

In the distance, amongst the haze and the smokescreen created by the sparklers, Jackson blinks at them with a wrinkled brow and curiously wide eyes.  His small hands are tucked into the front pocket of his oversized hoodie, bare feet kicking the wet sand until it clumps around his ankles.

Zayn swallows, his face half-tucked into Liam’s neck and something freezes in his blood.  Something washes out the _‘there’s a fire in our hearts’_ in his head and he barely recognizes this newly found pressure on his lungs before Liam’s mumbling something into his hair and pulling away.

No, he just watches Jackson dragging a shy foot into the sand, chin tipping down when Liam approaches and tugs him up into his arms, smiling against Jackson’s temple when his tiny arms circle Liam’s neck –

And Zayn barely remembers how soft and warm Liam’s skin felt against his fingertips before he takes his next sip of beer but his skin is still numb from the touch alone.

 

/+/

 

“You’re so gone for him, dude.  Fuck, it’s pathetic.”

Niall’s booming laugh echoes over the tinny sounds of dreamy Elvis Presley in the background of the burger joint, his tipped up grin over sugary pinks lips an easy contrast with his permanently red cheeks and shock white-blonde hair and wriggling eyebrows.  He leans over the counter, waving a maraschino cherry stolen from someone’s milkshake at Zayn.

“M’not,” Zayn whines with a mouthful of fries, swatting Niall’s hand away.  “He’s just – “

Zayn still hasn’t found the appropriate word for this – _nothing_.

“He’s a _what_?” Niall wonders, his voice teasingly sweet and fond, his nose wrinkling with another laugh.

Zayn scowls at him, squints his eyes at the hazy afternoon sun drenching the restaurant in soft gold and summer orange before flipping Niall off out of spite.

Out of a proper word for this boy he keeps thinking about and those two children he can’t help smiling at and this fucked out life he’s suffering through because –

Suddenly, his lips don’t strain for a reason to smile and the heaviness is starting to fade off for something a lot more satisfying.

But Zayn wholeheartedly refuses to admit it has anything to do with Liam.  Or Jackson’s quiet stares.  Or Annabelle’s contagious laugh.

Nothing at all.

“Fuck you, Nialler,” he grumbles, biting into his greasy, salty chicken sandwich and he’s terrible at hiding his grin when Niall swoons _‘we can’t go on together with suspicious smiles’_ with this sugary soft voice that Zayn snorts at.  He swipes the back of his hand to catch the grease shiny against his lips before smirking just for Niall.

“You invited him to our spot,” Niall reminds him while wriggling his eyebrows.

“It’s a public place,” Zayn corrects, his mouth immediately twitching crookedly into a smile.  “’sides, Lou invited him – “

“’Cause you insisted, Zayner,” Niall argues with a laugh.  “Just admit you’re hard up for the guy, alright?  He probably fancies – “

“You’re worse off with Harry and you know it.”

Niall rolls his eyes but there’s a definite pink in his cheeks now when he leans back, wiping his hands over his apron with a thoughtless shrug.

“Two dates in and we still haven’t fucked,” Niall admits shamelessly, cocking his chin up when Zayn makes a face.  “Going for a record here, mate.  He actually got me to enjoy watching _Point Break_ , man.  Like, fuck.”

“Gross, dude,” Zayn snickers, reaching up to tousle Niall’s hair.  “That’s relationship shit, bro.”

Niall grins shyly, rattling his knuckles in time to the music and looking away when his smile widens.

“Not me,” Niall replies but there’s a relaxed smile on his lips with loose shoulders, this daydream quality to his muscles like when he’s coming down from a high.

“Bullshit.”

Niall laughs at that and spills too much ketchup on Zayn’s fries in retaliation.

“Besides,” Niall says in that obvious voice like he’s taunting, like he’s about to call Zayn on his own shit and Zayn’s eyes dart away to a group of locals piling into a too-small booth with laughter and tan skin and the stench of the ocean on their clothes, “M’not exactly the one being adopted into a family, ‘kay Zayner?”

Zayn winces, swallowing a long gulp of cherry cola instead of looking at Niall but it’s right there in the back of his mind –

Caught between the webs and the dust and all of the fucked up things he doesn’t think about.  Just lingering when he’s unprepared for the assault, the way he fits –

He stops thinking and sniffs at Niall.

“It’s not happening, man,” Zayn argues without the anger, the frustration.  “Few months and I’m gone, man.  London, ‘member?”

Niall nods but Zayn’s tone isn’t very convincing and Niall shoots him this doubtful little grin, arms crossed over his chest, nothing but pale skin brightened by the lazy sun shining through the windows.

“It’s your life, man,” Niall shrugs, puffing out a few breaths like he does when he’s smoking one of Zayn’s cigarettes, “but it’d be sort of nice, don’t y’think?  It’d be sort of sick to see you settled down with someone good for you, bro.  Nothing serious, but just – I dunno, Zaynie.  Just like seeing you happy.”

“You make me happy,” Zayn drags out, his mouth tickled into a grin by Niall’s fond smile.  “And Tommo too.  Just you two and the fucking ocean, man.”

“You hate the ocean.”

Zayn nods, snorting and licking ketchup from his fingers.  “But you two love it and, fuck, I like the way that makes me feel.”

Niall rolls his eyes, laughing, everything around him bright, bright and warm.

“Quit fucking about with all the sappy shit, dude.  You sound like Harry,” Niall grumbles but his lips are still twisted and crookedly happy when he tugs the front of Zayn’s beanie down over his nose.

“And you sound like Juliet up on the balcony,” Zayn mumbles back, biting his bottom lip to shield his smile.

Niall groans, stealing a few fries.  “Zayner, I smoked my way through Lit, man.  And I spent all of my time sucking Max off rather than doing homework so _fuck off_ with all of the fancy sonnets.”

Zayn grins and doesn’t correct him.  He turns to the sun peeking through, soaking his skin in warmth and light and purposely doesn’t think of the way Liam’s eyes shine like leaves changing colors in early autumn –

Because that’s horribly poetic and Zayn doesn’t have enough time to pick apart what that means.

Not when there’s London in a few months and a summer to waste away and nothing.

 

/+/

 

He doesn’t tell Niall or Louis how he still hasn’t finished his applications for art school or how, just maybe, he’s terrified of leaving.  How he’s started researching schools closer to the city, maybe up north or just near the bay.  How he doesn’t think he can survive without being around them or how he’s not strong enough to leave his family behind.

And he doesn’t think to himself, repeatedly, maybe he’s sort of doing it because of Liam, too.

 

/+/

 

He doesn’t know why he’s doing this but he swears he’s insane –

It’s a lazy Monday afternoon with the sun a melted Jolly Rancher in the sky, peeking through that square box of a window in his basement-bedroom, and it all starts with a few frantic texts – _i’m fuckkkkeddd!_ and _cher has the flu_ and _cant cver her shifttt_ with a _harry is uppp in Newport with his dad and cant watch kidssss_ before a _sorry im just a loser :(_ – before Zayn yawns loudly and kicks away the sheets, scratches his belly and jaw and slides into an old pair of ripped jeans, some wrinkled up tank spotted in graffiti.

He doesn’t reply, not immediately, not before begging off the family car from Doniya even though she has a double shift to work.  They fuss in hushed tones because his mum is asleep somewhere in the living room and Safaa’s listening from the kitchen table but Doniya gives in after he swears to find her a replacement ride home and a week’s worth of dishes, something he knows he’ll regret –

Another thing to add to his already neatly composed list of regrets, of course.

He thumbs out a quick _‘if you want, I can keep them until your shift ends’_ that takes him ten minutes to send because, fuck, _this is insane_.

This is –

He won’t attach that word to any of this but it tastes and feels and almost breathes like something similar to that four-letter word he’s never used with anyone outside of family or Niall and Louis.

But never like this, this quickly.

And it’s just a _nothing_ but he meets Liam at the pharmacy for the spare key and the address and big, wide uncertain eyes that make Zayn laugh and that sudden urge to kiss Liam that’s been crawling beneath his skin surges through his blood like something toxic.

Like something addictive and it’s harsher than the need for a cigarette or one of those _Niall Horan hugs_ he swears by or that tranquil feeling he gets when he’s painting.

So he works against the momentum, the tug and pull in his heart, to kiss the corner of Liam’s mouth and steal his fingers over the pinkish blush on Liam’s cheeks just for the rough touch of the stubble behind his jaw.  He waits until something calm spreads over Liam’s face – that little itch of trust that makes Zayn soar, makes him feel alive under the harsh fluorescent lights – with a thumb under Liam’s chin to spare a look into his eyes and he mouths _‘trust me’_ when he’s walking away –

And he swears, he fucking _hopes_ Liam whispers _‘I do babe’_ when he’s halfway towards the automatic doors but he doesn’t chance looking over his shoulder just in case Liam’s face falls and he regrets every bit of this.

 

/+/

 

Every second of ever agreeing to this wildly fucked out idea of trying to be a _something_ rather than the nothing that he’s always been.

 

/+/

 

“If this is the future, you tyrants are going to destroy sweet mother earth.”

Zayn smiles from the doorway at Louis, propped up on his desk with his feet swinging and the collar of his uniform shirt popped up.  He’s got that sea-swept hairstyle that’s all effortless and tangled like seaweed.  His chinos are neatly pressed but they sit low on his hips, showing off the top of his American Apparel boxer briefs, and flip flops on his feet.

It’s some sort of casual-cool that Louis tries to make look natural – even with his rough stubble and intoxicating blue eyes that remind Zayn of the Coral Sea – with fringe in his eyes and tan skin and he’s incredibly California by definition.

Louis’ got _Killer Queen_ blaring from his dock on a corner of the desk but none of the kids are paying attention, a choir of voices wailing through their own rendition of some old Maroon 5 song like a bunch of misfits drunk off their apple cocktail juice boxes on the floor.

Zayn chokes a laugh at the back of his throat, his own fringe hanging over his eyes with a knit beanie hiding most of his hair.  He tangles his fingers in it when Louis smiles at him, scuffs his Chuck Taylors all over the grungy carpet before hopping on the desk next to Louis, their knees knocking between the silence and ‘ _dynamite with a laser beam, guaranteed to blow your mind.’_

Louis huffs a sigh, soft fingers burrowing through the holes in Zayn’s jeans to scratch at skin before he drops his temple on Zayn’s bare shoulder, ankles brushing and keeping time with Freddie Mercury.

“Remind me, again, why I do this?” Louis pleads in this fragile voice that’s a little teasing with the corners of his mouth quirked high.

Zayn clears his throat, squeezes an arm around Louis’ back with a quiet laugh buried in fucked out hair.

“Because you love them,” Zayn replies as the kids chase each other around small tables, knocking over plastic chairs and causing a small riot.

“I don’t.”

“Because the money is better here than at public schools,” Zayn adds, grinning at the incredulous noise Louis replies with.

“S’what my mom and step-dad are for.  The pay here is shit.”

“Because one day,” Zayn says, slow and patient with fingers tightening around Louis’ hip, “you’re gonna marry El, man.  Gonna buy some dream house up in the hills and have a shitload of little dictators just like this lot.  It’s called preparation.”

Louis bites into Zayn’s shoulder with a yelp, dull nails dragging over Zayn’s knee through the denim.

“Fucking hell, I’m screwed,” Louis whispers and Zayn huffs out a laugh at the way Louis trembles at the thought alone.

He tangles his fingers in Louis’ loose hair, chewing his bottom lip when Jackson looks up from his corner and they exchange careful looks, slow breaths in synchronization like they’re afraid to do anything else.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?” Louis wonders, fingers pinching at Zayn’s thigh until he looks away.

“Traded off with Aiden so I could grab some extra shifts over the weekend,” Zayn offers, blinking at the messy drawings stuck to the wall with clear tape, a collision of chaotic water paints and acrylic.

“So you’re buying me dinner then?” Louis grins, all of the insinuations between his words drawing the corners of Zayn’s mouth upward.

“No.”

“Asshole,” Louis sighs but there’s a smile behind the word he hides against Zayn’s shoulder.  He picks at the threaded bracelets on Zayn’s wrist, the smooth brown leather one he stole off of Niall a year ago.  “My parents feel bad about ditching me for the week and taking my sisters up to Seattle.  Left me the credit card and a _‘no booze’_ clause we both know m’gonna break.”

Zayn smirks, his nose wrinkling with a pitchy laugh.  “Sangria and tacos?”

“Nah,” Louis smirks, their bodies naturally swaying to _Bohemian Rhapsody_ and Zayn loves how they trade off the high parts with each other in between breaths, “Me and Nialler are gonna head down to Mexico for the weekend.  Tequila and authentic fajitas.”

Zayn hides his smile in Louis’ hair, fingers tickling up his spine to cup the nape of his neck where the hair is thickest.  His thumb strokes over the side of Louis’ neck until he draws back, wriggling his eyebrows at Zayn.

“You up for it?”

Zayn exhales a sweet noise before shaking his head, darting his eyes to the spill of sunlight from the large windows, the fuzzy sight of beach in the distance.

“Thinking about just crashing.  Working on my apps and portfolio.  Get my priorities in order,” Zayn replies, his voice raspy and smoked out from his last cigarette on the way here.

“Priorities,” Louis repeats with a confused face.  “What’s that?”

Zayn thumps him on the shoulder with a fist, ducks the swipe of Louis’ hand with a cackle and they fall into each other so easily, ignoring the music and the sun kicking dust in the air and the children yelling like punchdrunk kids at a Warped concert.

“Sticking around to spend some time with Daddy Payno?” Louis teases, his nose dragging over Zayn’s shoulder like a puppy.

Zayn wrinkles his smile to absorb the way his heart chases the air up his throat.  He scratches at incoming scruff and ignores Louis for a song or two, blinking at the harsh glow of the sun.

“No,” he finally replies quietly, dropping his chin.  “Maybe?”

Louis nods and doesn’t shoot him the disapproving look he’s expecting.  It’s delicate and thoughtful and wholly sincere like he knows Louis never is.

“Good guy,” Louis says like he always does and it’s enough.

It’s – well, it’s a reminder and a thing Zayn can’t quite escape and maybe that’s why he’s here.

Maybe it’s why his heart keeps trembling every time Liam sends him a quick text, an army of _thank you’s_ spelled out in varied forms to sound casual and not so mindlessly affectionate.

“So what’re you really here for, dude?” Louis asks, pushing off the desk and helping Zayn down.  His eyebrows shoot up when Zayn drags a foot over the carpet and Zayn wonders if he’s that obvious.

He sucks in a quick breath, swallows it like a shot of courage, before answering, “Liam can’t get out of work.  He has to pull the late shift and Harry’s not in town to babysit like always so – “

Louis blinks at him, some rapid motion that fans shadows over his cheeks and shatters green into the blue of his eyes and that tight coil around Zayn’s spine keeps squeezing relentlessly.

“Wait, you’re actually,” Louis pauses, furrowing his brow for a second before his lips spread into this large smirk that Zayn hates.  “You’re actually playing _daddy_ today, yeah?  Fuck, Ni said you were gone for him but – “

“I’m not _gone_ for any-fucking-body,” Zayn hisses low enough that the children can’t quite hear but Louis barks out a laugh, shoving at Zayn’s shoulder before doubling over.

“You’re shit at lying Malik,” Louis insists through sputtered giggles, a locomotion without an engine as he strains for a breath.  “You’re ridiculously into – “

Zayn scowls and stomps on Louis’ toe, shaking his head.  “Don’t say it.”

Louis snorts, shrugging carelessly.  “S’okay, man.  Like it’s – fuck, it’s pretty sweet that you like him enough to do this.  I mean, do you know how this looks?”

Zayn does.

He’s thought about it at least a dozen times in thirty seconds and all the way in the car, fingers squeezing so tight around the wheel that his wrists locked up and his knuckles went a sick white and his throat was just a narrow tunnel for fresh air before he was halfway out the parking lot of the drug store.

It’s just that –

When he was sixteen, he thought he’d always be a family man like his father.  He figured he’d shed this upstart, rebellious trend and settle into some big house with airy ceilings and sheer curtains and his children’s fingerprints all along the walls and crayon marks on the baseboards.  He’d marry someone sweet and thoughtful and –

It hasn’t crossed his mind, not once, that maybe he’d want that at twenty-two.

Not until, well, two hours ago.

“It’s just a favor,” Zayn says, quiet and hoarse with a small shrug while his foot continues to drag over the scruffy carpet.

Louis shoots him a doubtful look, a hand squeezing at Zayn’s shoulder to stretch all of the tension from Zayn’s bones.

“Whatever you say man.”

And Zayn wants to say more.  He wants to tell Louis how terrified he is of this feeling or the way his blood stops cold when he thinks of how much this will hurt when summer is over.  How he’s gone from a _nothing_ to a _something_ or a _someone_.  The way he suddenly wants to fill all of the gaps in Liam’s system that Emily left behind or how he wants to teach Jackson to draw or maybe watch Liam teach Annabelle how to surf.

How his mum once told him life gets easier with love and how _completely wrong_ she is because, _wow_ , the pain shifting in his marrow at the idea of leaving all of them behind – Liam included – keeps him paralyzed in his bed half-past midnight almost every night.

But he tugs on the bracelets around his wrist and lets the draft catch in the holes of his ripped jeans and shuts his eyes until his breathing settles the dust in his lungs.

“Zee!” Annabelle shouts, already doing that stumble-run she always does across the carpet and there’s a whole beat of _nothing_ before Zayn swallows, his lips stretching into this incredibly wide smile he can’t hide –

Not even from Louis.

He follows instinct and kneels down to swallow her up into his arms, lifting her into the air until she’s giggling and curling her smaller arms around his neck.

Zayn laughs into her messy hair when she presses a wet kiss to his cheek, tiny fingers trying to sneak under his beanie to tug on his hair.

“Hello princess,” he whispers to her and waits half a second before she jerks back with a grin brighter than the high sun –

He knows she’s a little fond of the word, the way he explained to her about _Beauty and the Beast_ and watched her dance around in her yellow sundress with the white, frilly edges to _‘Be Our Guest’_ for hours afterwards.

She glows in his arms, tucked to his chest with a cocked head and curious eyebrows lifted as she traces all of the ink scattered on his bicep, around the top of his chest.

“So much coloring,” she whispers, shiny lips hiking into a smile.  “Papa says it’s pretty.”

Zayn ducks his head, presses his cheek to her forehead to hide the blush but he can see Louis grinning from the corner of his vision and it’s wholly embarrassing and a little emasculating but he rides the momentum happily.

“Papa is pretty too,” he sighs, rubbing small circles over her spine.

Annabelle pulls a face, shaking her head.  “Boys aren’t pretty, Zee!  Only girls.  Like me.”

A scratchy laugh drags from Zayn’s lungs, comes out smoky and sharp and he squeezes her a little tighter to absorb the giggles that spread over all of her limbs.

“Where is, um, Papa?” she asks softly with a matching frown, thick sections of her fringe falling in her eyes.

Zayn pushes it back behind her pink ears, chewing his bottom lip.

She blinks at him with those wide, anxious amber eyes that are splintered gold when the sun touches them and her little nose twitches like Liam’s does just before he laughs at something amusing.

“He’s at work and Uncle Haz is too so they asked me to come get you,” Zayn explains in this gentle voice and he’s waiting for her to stiffen in his arms, to crawl away like he’s a stranger.  “Is that okay?”

She looks thoughtful, strawberry bottom lip sucked in and cheeks a faint pink and fuzzy eyebrows like Liam’s.  She scratches along his tattoos, over the smear of red for lips, across the wings before sighing and nodding.  Something quiet and gentle pushes over her mouth, a smile Zayn could recognize from a crowded room in the middle of a fire drill.

“I like, um, seeing you,” she says like she’s struggling for words, swallowing quickly.  “You’re fun.”

“Wicked, babe,” Louis offers from behind them, laughing into his shoulder and Zayn wants to elbow him but he’s too afraid he’ll jostle Annabelle so he settles for shooting him a harsh glare instead.

“Wicked,” Annabelle repeats with excitement and Zayn can’t help the barrel of laughter that soaks his lungs when he looks at her.  He leans in until his chin brushes over her forehead and her sweet, warm breath caresses his neck and –

 _A family of his own, one day_ crosses his mind for the millionth time in less than three hours.

“So gone,” Louis sings in the background and Zayn stumbles a little to stamp on his foot but the pleased smile that spreads over his pink lips is anchored by the yelp Louis lets loose.

“Ready for some dinner and chill time?” Zayn offers Annabelle when she raises her eyebrows at him, tiny fingers twisted in his tank.

“Yes,” she replies, cheeks stained a brighter pink, “M’starved!”

Zayn muffles his laugh while peppering kisses to her forehead until she’s squirming and giggling and cuddling just a little closer.

“Jack!” she calls from his arms, half-turning to grin at her brother.  “C’mon!  Zee is here.”

Zayn holds his breath when Jackson looks up, large eyes and gentle frown on his lips, and counts the seconds in his head before the small boy pushes up to his feet and carefully moves about the room.  His freckles are speckled across his nose like spots of paint and his Hulk t-shirt hangs loose on his small frame, scuffed up Converse dragging on the floor.

The lopsided curve of Zayn’s mouth when he looks at Jackson’s neatly stiff quiff, half-mohawk and the way he immediately grabs his backpack stuffed with comics and coloring books.  He’s got a still expression and anxious eyes when he stops at Zayn’s feet, looking up at his sister before dragging his eyes over Zayn.

“Alright little buddy?” Zayn asks, his voice slow and calm.

Jackson blinks at him and stays quiet.

“Jack,” Annabelle whines with a crumpled brow, a cherry-red pout that Zayn turns away from to stop his laughter, “Don’ be rude.”

Jackson scowls at her with owlish eyes and a huff of breath and Zayn swears he mouths _‘you don’t be rude’_ and they’re so much like he and Doniya that he can’t help but grin.

“Ready to go?” Zayn asks Jackson, still a little unsure with his voice and Jackson turns to him with large eyes and a small crease to his mouth, lips parted and showing off the missing teeth and the nervous tongue as he teeters from foot to foot next to Zayn.

There’s a flicker of hesitation in Jackson’s eyes, just a brief flash, before he’s blinking at Zayn’s free hand and slowly lifting his own.

Zayn’s certain his heart slows and his breathing accelerates and the world halts when Jackson fits his small hand into Zayn’s, curling small fingers around Zayn’s ring finger for a gentle squeeze.  He keeps it there like he’s staring at the contrast and size and Louis lets out a long, excited breath behind him that trembles down Zayn’s spine.

And Jackson –

He stands there, blinking at Zayn with that stilled face and wide eyes and nervous bottom lip that he keeps gnawing at like he can chew away the tension.

It takes Zayn a few breaths before he’s knocking away the apprehension and curling his fingers loosely around Jackson’s hand.  He doesn’t bother to think about it – not when Jackson’s not running away or staring at him like he’s an enemy – and they stay like that long enough for Zayn to learn the soft texture of Jackson’s palm and for gravity to finally kick in because he’s been orbiting the fucking clouds for at least thirty seconds now.

“You sure about this, man?” Louis asks when they’re halfway out the door, Jackson by his side and Annabelle pressed to his chest.

“Definitely,” Zayn replies without hesitation, smiling.

Louis grins back, patting his shoulder and laughing when Zayn shrugs away.

“Should I notify emergency services ahead of time or wait until they set fire to your hair?” Louis teases and if Zayn had a free hand, he’d flip him off but he’s not willing to lower Annabelle to the floor or relinquish this loose hold he has around Jackson’s small hand.

“Goodbye Lou.”

“Be careful with them.  Stay away from stray dogs.  Keep them away from your lighter because all of that product in your hair is flammable!” Louis calls out from the doorway when they’re in the hall.

“And so is your sexuality,” Zayn laughs back and he swears Louis’ cackle echoes down the hall as they slowly move towards the door –

Together, almost like a –

A _something_.

 

/+/

 

Zayn drives them up the PCH for a view of the still alive, alive, alive beaches and the sun kissing the edge of the surf in the distance.  He grins while Jackson presses a hand to the warm window, wide-eyed with a half-smile at the view of orangey light streaking the flat ocean and the heady scent of sun-kissed magnolias in the distance.  Annabelle sings along happily to all of the songs on the crackling radio, the wind tossing their hair sideways from the speed alone.  He cautiously scrubs a few fingers through Jackson’s hair when he leans towards the dash to drum his hands like Liam does and something bright bursts in his veins when Jackson doesn’t jerk away.

They walk the empty streets with an evening pink sky above them, the clouds a stretched atomic tangerine while the fireball of a sun burns vermillion in the background.  Zayn leads them around abandoned buildings just outside of the city and teaches Jackson how to tag the walls while painting out a giant whale with a bowtie just for Annabelle and the outrageous smile she keeps hiding behind her tiny hands.

“Nice,” Zayn whispers when Jackson spray paints a messy Superman symbol.

He nudges a few knuckles to the nape of Jackson’s neck, leans down while shaking up a can to streak a _‘JP’_ under the art that Jackson blinks at for a long moment before nodding.

Annabelle snickers into his neck when she’s close, paint-stained fingers brushing up his forearm and adding color to all of his inky tattoos – just smudges of purple and orange and a neon green that Zayn sort of likes spread across the robot on the inside of his skin.

“Are you two starved like I am?” he asks when he stands, dusting off his jeans and shoving all of the aerosol cans into his shoulderbag.

“Starved,” Annabelle repeats in this dramatic tone he’s certain she picked up off of Louis but he smiles anyway.

He slides the strap of his bag over his chest and he’s a little unprepared when two different hands grab at his fingers, Annabelle to his left and Jackson on his right.  It tickles just around the edges of his mouth, the way they squeeze around his fingers and rock on their heels identically.  Annabelle with her wide smile and Jackson with his worried brow and Zayn –

His teeth bite firmly at his lip and he settles a grin on his mouth before nodding at both of them, the sun in his eyes making him dizzy when he leads them back to the car.

 

/+/

 

“Hey, you brought the ankle-biters!” Niall cheers when they crowd into Zayn’s favorite corner of the counter, Zayn helping Annabelle onto one of the stools while Jackson climbs up on his own.

“Lou called you, right?” Zayn asks flatly when he flops down between them and this would feel so normal, so comfortable except –

Jackson and Annabelle wedge themselves to his side, reaching out for plastic menus and the whole world drops away when their small shoulders brush his arms and he feels that inch of space that divided them dissipate.

Niall grins at them, drying out a few coffee mugs with floppy blonde hair falling in his true blue eyes.

“He might’ve informed a few of the local news stations,” Niall laughs with his spine pressed into the opposite counter, nodding at Zayn.  “I’ve already called the coast guard and all of the local authorities in Mexico, y’know, just in case.”

“Assholes,” Zayn mumbles, grinning when Annabelle smacks his arm with a hissing _‘language Zee’_ attached.

“Mighty big of you, bro,” Niall notes, sliding two orange juices towards Annabelle and Jackson, a freshly brewed cup of coffee for Zayn.  “Watching the kids is, you know, kind of huge.  Unsupervised and all.  S’like a marriage proposal or somet’ing.”

Zayn narrows his eyes at Niall after his first sip of scalding coffee and flips him off when the other two stop paying attention to them.

“It’s your boyfriend’s fault – “

“Hey,” Niall frowns, snapping his damp towel at Zayn’s fingers.  “We don’t go around throwing that word out like – _fuck you very much_ dude, but three dates does not make a significant other.”

“No,” Zayn grins behind the lip of his cup, the corners of his eyes crinkling up, “but I reckon you’re one date away from calling him your _partner_.”

Niall makes a discontent noise, tosses balled up napkins at Zayn’s head but Zayn catches it in the corner of his eye – the embarrassingly wide smile on Niall’s lips like he wouldn’t mind.

Like a _maybe_ weighs heavy on his tongue and he thinks Harry must really be something because Niall has one very vital rule – _no relationships_.

“Christ, man,” Niall sighs, inching in to lean over the counter and his fingers scramble beneath Zayn’s beanie to curl into his thick hair before giving Zayn an appreciative smile when he lifts his eyebrows.  “Am I really as pathetic as you now?”

Zayn scoffs out a laugh, knocking Niall’s had away and distracts himself with old Weezer and _‘I look just like Buddy Holly and you’re Mary Tyler Moore’_ while Niall orders up burgers, greasy fries for Jackson and Annabelle.

Niall hops onto the counter, ignoring all of Paul’s protests about the other customers from the kitchen, sliding his cheap neon blue sunglasses onto Annabelle’s small face while listening to all of her stories about the other kids at the daycare.  He steals a few of her fries and smirks at Zayn when Jackson does the same, eating quietly on his own stool like the world doesn’t exist.

With a bowed head, small fingers dripping with ketchup, tiny hands wrapping around the massive burger and mayo catching on his pink bottom lip.  He’s got tense shoulders with elbows on the counter and wandering eyes and Zayn gnaws at his bottom lip while watching him –

While watching a quiet, gentle, smaller version of Liam.

Niall’s foot nudges him across the counter and Zayn can’t escape that look in his eyes –

Incredibly fond and appreciative and a little sympathetic.

“Family man,” Niall whispers with a hand over Annabelle’s head, fingers tangled in her hair and Jackson nudging up to steal a few more of Zayn’s fries.

Zayn can’t pick apart the white noise from Niall’s voice from the sweet croon of _‘do you love me, do you surfer girl?’_ in his ears or that throb of his heart in his chest but it all melts away when Annabelle hides her face in the crook of his elbow and Jackson hums quietly next to him because –

 _Oh_.

He gets it and it aches between his tendons but he doesn’t fight it off this time.

He simply smiles at Niall and lets the orange of the sunset behind them cover the pink glow of his cheeks when he finally, finally looks away from all of them.

 

/+/

 

It’s just some small bungalow sat near the edge of the beach with pale yellow shutters, a peeling white railing on the porch, scruffy patches of gold-green grass, a Columbia blue stucco exterior, and sand for a backyard.  Just some dwarf California real estate with vines crawling up the steps and siding and it reminds Zayn of Liam –

No, _the sea_.

Quiet, unsuspecting, impressive when up close.

On the inside, it’s vintage and homey and it looks lived in with the rings of coffee stains on a small table in the living room, a ratty couch with sunken-in cushions and the foam stuffing peeking out of broken seams and a scratchy duvet hanging off one of the arms.  There’s toys all over the beat-up hardwood floors, empty cereal bowls in the kitchen, old polaroid photos of Jackson and Annabelle as infants hanging crooked off the wall, stacks of dusty novels balancing out an end table in the narrow hallway.  An empty fruit bowl in the middle of the kitchen counter for keys and a pile of flip flops near the door and a collection of sea shells all around the corners of the house.

It’s some assembly of fond memories in a small space like a shoebox and Zayn –

He’s in love with every piece of it.

Annabelle’s room is dim and a bare pink made to look silver by the low-hanging moon just outside of her window.  The light peeks in through sheer moon-printed curtains that sway like fairies in the night, every broken piece like stars across her face while she sleeps tucked beneath a yellow blanket covered in crescent moons.  Her messy hair is stretched over her pillow, eyelashes fluttering every few seconds like she’s suspended in a wonderful dream and her small fists squeeze at nothing when the wind howls outside.

There’s a palm tree just outside the window, scratching shadows and dark shapes over the corners of the room, across her collection of thrift store teddy bears and pretty dresses on plastic hangers in the closet.

Zayn watches her from the doorway, grinning into his knuckles, listening to her soft voice as she slides deeper into her sleep.  It’s quiet and empty except for the gentle breaths pushed from her lungs.  The cool bars of white light from outside shine off the glittery blush high on her cheeks, her lips glossy from them spending an hour playing dress-up with her stuffed animals – a small tea set with a plastic table set up in the corner of the room shining white and pastel yellow under the weight of the moon.

He scrubs at his own mouth, pretty red lip gloss staining his knuckles and there’s still a layer of glittery mascara on his eyelids, a rose color on his cheeks from where she dusted the blush while giggling.

His lips quirk when she sighs gently, tugging the blanket higher over her shoulders while pressing her face into the pillow.

She’s just an angel under the glow of the moon and he can’t look away.

Not for another thirty seconds and uneven breathing.

He carefully pulls the door closed, leaving it cracked _just in case_ , before turning on his heels.  He drags his fingers along the walls, the house silent except for the television in the living room and the crickets singing outside.

Cautiously, he straightens a photo of the three of them on the wall – tarnished sterling frame hardly a distraction from Liam’s goofy grin or Annabelle’s infant body tucked in his arms, Jackson hugging around his calf and the washed out California sun in the background.  He tries to pick apart Emily’s features on their faces even though there’s not a signal picture of her to be seen and he wonders if Liam’s hidden all of the mementos of her somewhere, stuffed into beat-up cardboard boxes so they’ll never see –

So _Liam_ will never press his fingertips to her face just to feel the ache underneath his skin.

The thought follows him all the way down the hall, into the shadows, and he watches the fireflies chase the stars from the kitchen window just to distract himself.

 

/+/

 

The tiny bathroom just opposite of Jackson’s bedroom has marine blue tiles with coral pink accents around the doorway and starfish patterns all across the floor.  The clear shower curtain is decorated in dolphins and fish and there’s seashells clumped all around the white basin.

Zayn splashes his face with warm water to scrub away the make-up Annabelle stained his face with, some fluffy purple towel hanging from a rack drying away the shiny droplets.  His hair goes limp from the water, long slices of fringe falling in his eyes every time he bends over to dip his face into the small sea caught between his cupped hands.  His eyelashes stick together and he barely recognizes the warmth in the doorway before he blinks at the mirror and finds Jackson pressed to the archway with his arms folded, his brow scrunched.

He’s watching Zayn with those careful eyes, lips tugged into a frown when Zayn washes off the mascara.

“I look pretty stupid, right?” Zayn asks, his own mouth twitching into a smile just for Jackson.

There’s a brief moment of nothing, just Jackson’s eyes and tense shoulders before he yields a laugh, trembles with the noise.  His eyes crinkle up and his mouth goes soft, pliant and the pale overhead light leaves a thick glow around his small frame.

Zayn snorts, shaking his head at Jackson before scrubbing the last of the blush from his cheeks.

“Belle wanted me to be a princess just like her,” Zayn adds, huffing out a sigh and a dumb smile when Jackson bites down on his bottom lip like –

Fuck, like _Liam_.

“Says I was as pretty as Princess Jasmine,” Zayn laughs, dragging a quick hand through his hair until it’s all pulled back and off his face.  He stares in the mirror for bits of gloss, leftover foundation before pulling back.  “Pretty silly.”

Jackson chuckles into his hands, ducking his head to hide his toothy grin and his cheeks are an astonishing pink like early spring flowers, wild orchids off the coast of some isolated island.

He drags his bare toes over the cold tiles, dressed in a pair of loose Batman pajama pants and a wrinkled Green Lantern pullover with manic hair and soft eyes –

And for a hard heartbeat Zayn thinks of being sixteen and imagining his own son with wide eyes, dark hair, some fond fascination with comic book characters just like Zayn and he can’t breathe.

He can’t look away from this boy without smiling into his own shoulder and touching the edge of hope buried deep in his chest.

“You think this is funny, d’ya?” Zayn inquires when he turns, propping a hip against the sink while Jackson nods at him.

He grins back, palming the nape of his neck while Jackson’s small shoulders shrug.

“Hey,” Zayn says quietly, cocking his head at Jackson, “do you like superheroes?”

Something bright like a newborn star or northern lights or the neon strobes of the city spreads across Jackson’s face and he quickly nods, wiggles his toes over the tiles.

Zayn chokes out a giggle, everything tight and unfamiliar in his chest relaxing.  He reaches out a hand, waits a soft inhale before Jackson reaches up and slides his fingers into Zayn’s palm.  They’re cold and tickle over Zayn’s skin and he’ll never admit to Niall or Louis how well they fit but –

In his own mind, he loves the way Jackson bites his lip and squeezes around a few of Zayn’s fingers and all of that hesitation melts away from his face.

“Well I’ve got one for you, dude,” Zayn smiles while clicking off the bathroom light, walking Jackson down the dim hallway and he leaves every stitch of regret in shadows.

 

/+/

 

They’re nestled together on the worn-down couch, Zayn wedged between two cushions with Jackson pressed gently to his side, with the television volume on low and the fuzzy blue light of it casts all of these dusty, soft shadows across the dark room.  They watch _Man of Steel_ with wide eyes, helpless matching grins at all of the visuals, and a box of caramel corn leaving their fingers sticky.

It’s like the first time – even though it’s the _tenth_ – watching the film with Jackson’s little breaths, sharp gasps every time the flashback scenes flicker on, with his cold feet snug under one of Zayn’s thighs and he’s half in Zayn’s lap each time he reaches for a small handful of popcorn.  He buries his small body further into Zayn’s side each time Zod appears, trembling a little but smiling into the gaps of Zayn’s body like he’s borrowing bits of Superman’s strength.

Zayn’s spare hand is caught in Jackson’s hair, fingers running gently over his scalp until he’s drowsy and pliant against Zayn.  Until his little fingers twist in Zayn’s shirt and he has a temple pressed low on Zayn’s chest, eyes fluttering every few seconds to stay awake.

They’re halfway through the movie and mostly through the box of caramel corn when a set of keys jiggles in the door and Liam pushes into the foyer.  He toes off his shoes by the door, heavy footfalls echoing down the hallway before he peeks his head in with heavy eyes and –

Zayn can’t stop the little pinpricks at his fingertips or the way his limbs go numb or that little rabbit race of his heart when he sees Liam’s soft smile.

“Hey,” he whispers, leaning in the doorframe with wrinkled scrubs, his nametag peeling off, tan muscles and dark ink all across his forearms.

Zayn swallows, blinks at him, smiles a _hello_ because his throat won’t quite work and he watches Jackson scurry off the couch and dash across the hardwoods with light feet into a long hug from Liam.

“Missed you,” Liam whispers into Jackson’s messy hair – from Zayn’s fingers and he hates how far his lips stretch at that thought – and scatters kisses against his temple before lowering to his knees to release Jackson.  “Alright?”

Jackson nods with a huge smile, glances over his shoulder for a long moment at Zayn.

His bright eyes don’t hold that fragile look Zayn’s used to, that constant curious stare or hesitation.  They’re _alive_ and gentle and almost like Annabelle’s.

He turns back into Liam’s arms, squeezing around Liam’s neck and sighing a shaky breath.

Liam giggles, one arm curled around his son’s spine, the other cupping the back of his head to keep him pressed close.  His eyelashes flick shadows over his cheeks, his body shuddering with a deep inhale of Jackson’s skin before he lets him loose.

“Bedtime, yeah?” he whispers into the dark, pushing Jackson’s hair back.

Jackson gives him a sharp nod, still grinning like mad.

He leans on the tips of his toes, lips to Liam’s cheek, just outside the shell of his ear.  The corners of his mouth quirk and Zayn can see it, even in the dark, that sharp tangerine glow around him like he fell from the sun.

“G’night Superman.”

Jackson’s voice is scratchy from the lack of use, quiet and warm and shy like Zayn imagines Liam was as a child.  It’s a little unsteady and he looks a little unsure when he draws back but Liam –

He blinks for a long second at Jackson, fingers tight around his tiny hips, lips parted before a pink tongue drags all of the dryness from his mouth.  He swallows and looks a little helpless, a lot lost before he grins and tugs Jackson further into his arms.

“Babe,” he half-whispers, almost sobs and Jackson’s giggling and squirming in his tight arms.  “Jacks, I – “

The words don’t come but he presses a gentle kiss to Jackson’s cheek and ducks his head when Jackson gives Zayn a small wave, scampering down the hallway towards his room.

Zayn shoves off the couch, bare feet padding over the cold floor to where Liam’s still kneeling, head bowed in surprise.  There’s a warm grin tickling at Zayn’s mouth and he’s a little shocked when Liam surges up with dark eyes, a pink mouth, shaking hands.

“Hey,” Zayn whispers, shy and quiet, and he waits a small second before Liam hauls in a shaky breath and –

Strong hands grip around his waist, the muscles in Liam’s forearms barely straining when he knocks Zayn off his feet and spins them until Zayn’s spine is pressed to the nearest wall and Liam’s mouth collides with his.

It’s one of those fast, off-center kisses where their lips almost miss and their breathing accelerates immediately and Liam’s supporting Zayn’s weight against the wall with his hips rather than his arms.  He’s got fingers stroking Zayn’s cheek, his auxiliary hand pressed firmly to Zayn’s chest to feel the thrum of his heart through his ribcage.

There’s a dozen different songs Zayn can’t remember the name of in his head and he’s got a leg curled around Liam’s thigh, the heel of his foot pressed to Liam’s calf.  His arms are twined around Liam’s neck and he changes the angle, just slightly, to chase all of Liam’s moans with his tongue and the fingers that catch in his hair tug until Zayn’s head thumps against the wall and Liam can deepen the kiss.

They’re restless and panting when Liam jerks back, foreheads pressed together, lips raw and swollen.

Liam’s got dilated eyes, a soft curve to his mouth, a thumb dragging over Zayn’s bottom lip to swipe away the saliva.  His hips are still nudged against Zayn’s and – _fuck_ – Zayn can feel the outline, the strong shape of his cock on the inside of his thigh.  He tries not to swivel, not to expose his own erection tenting his stupid jeans but it’s so difficult when Liam leans in and Zayn swears he can still taste the mint from Liam’s gum over the tip of his tongue.

“Stay,” Liam whispers with a tense jaw, labored breaths.

Zayn whines and his hips involuntarily grind against Liam’s while his head spins like it’s fogged by smoke.

He feels high and stupidly drunk and his fingers bury themselves in Liam’s hair until he can grip clarity again.  “Probably not a good idea,” he offers with a crooked grin, a laugh burning up his lungs and singeing his chest when Liam yelps, presses his mouth to the long column of Zayn’s neck.  “Not the first night, at least.”

“Shit,” Liam hisses, rocking his hips a little for the friction and the way Zayn – _the bastard_ – trembles out a fragile moan in the dark.

He uses a spare hand to nudge Liam’s chin up – before his filthy mouth leaves a mark on Zayn’s skin, before Zayn changes his mind and hopes there’s a nearby bottle of lube to slick Liam’s prick with – to find the warmth, the gentleness in those eyes.

“This is sort of a second non-date, right?” Liam mumbles, his tongue swiping out to lick the pad of Zayn’s thumb.

Zayn snorts, shaking his head and he still feels weightless while pressed to the wall, toes still not touching the floor.

“I think the rule is to wait until the third date before you fuck,” Zayn giggles, noting the strong shift of Liam’s hips and the way his own hips chase that feeling with a slow roll.

“What if,” Liam whispers, his breath warm on Zayn’s bare shoulder, his mouth soft under his jaw, “I just wanted you to stay.  For the company.  For the – “

Liam doesn’t finish.  Even in the shadows, Zayn can see the vulnerable flex of his jaw, the tender flutter of his lashes, the way his mouth pulls into a frown because Zayn is a _first_ –

A first since Emily.  A first kiss and a first touch and a first burst of something familiar in his blood stream and it fucking frightens Zayn.

Because he is a _nothing_ and he can’t afford to attach his heart to things like healing and affection and being anyone’s something.

He clears his throat and waits for Liam to lower him to his feet before he presses a soft kiss to the bridge of Liam’s nose, smiling at the thick and messy stain of blush that reaches from Liam’s cheeks all the way to the edges of his collarbone.  His fingers sneak under the hem of those wrinkled scrubs until he can feel the tight muscles of Liam’s stomach like he’s holding his breath.

Like he’s seconds away from suffocating on this tension between them.

“I can’t,” he mutters in their silence and Liam nods even though he doesn’t know what Zayn means.

Even though they stare at each other for a few minutes, trading off softer kisses that say otherwise.

But Liam doesn’t argue.  He tangles his fingers with Zayn all the way to the door and presses him into the archway for a slow kiss, fixes a gentle laugh to the corner of Zayn’s mouth and swears to call him in the morning.

 

/+/

 

And Zayn won’t tell anyone how he wanks off in the shower thinking about Liam’s muscles and the outline of his cock and the way his salty kisses are nothing like any of the firsts Zayn’s ever experienced.

He won’t admit how cold his sheets are when he’s alone or how his spine _aches_ for Liam pressed to it or the way his fingers shove unforgivingly into his stack of pillows when he thinks about Jackson drowsy on his chest or Annabelle’s soft face under the moonlight or how that one-story bungalow was the closest he’s felt to home since leaving Bradford.

 

/+/

 

It’s one of those lazy Saturday afternoons on some half-mile stretch of sandy beach that he’s never been to before.  Just some isolated location somewhere near Laguna, just some island in the sun caught between rocky cliffs and true blue ocean.  There’s tangles of seaweed near the wet edges, a map of sea life leading to nothing along the shore, and the sun sits in a crisp blue sky like a huge chunk of gold stone tossed into the sea.

Zayn has been sitting back near the rocks closest to dry land for an hour, huffing through cigarettes and feeling so out of place.

It’s not his scene –

with the high waves, the birds chasing nothing in the sky, flocks of people scattered along the soft turf of sand and tide, some nearby food truck blasting that My Chemical Romance song about _‘I’m not okay, you wear me out’_ while the world sits in a haze of gold and azure

– but he smiles around the filter of his cigarette with squinted eyes because of the sun while flinging small pebbles at the shallowest part of the water.

He sits back against a throne of rocks in his favorite cargos, a loose tank that exposes all of the ink up his arms, and his feet in the sand.  His fingers keep, habitually, falling into his hair to feel the soft texture of wax instead of gels and hairspray while the ocean pounds the shore for another long beat.

Harry is helping Jackson and Annabelle construct a small city of sand meant to be castles but they’re nothing but poorly shaped cones and an uneven moat circling them.  They’ve got their tongues caught between teeth in deep concentration while Harry falls back into the sand laughing, long arms tangled around Annabelle’s shoulders and toes wiggling at Jackson as he carefully molds another tower.

Jackson keeps stealing glances up at him, too far away for Zayn to make out the collection of colors in his eyes but there’s a half-smile every time they exchange glances – like Jackson’s a little more comfortable with him, like Jackson might be letting him in –

Or he has already but his heart is a little more willing and that scares Zayn.

It fucking petrifies him.

Niall’s somewhere caught between the waves, wiping out every time he finds a little balance on his board but the roar of his laughter is louder than the ocean and he keeps emerging from a pile of foamy surf with a giant grin and a small wave just for Zayn.

And Liam –

Liam navigates the waters like he was born in them.  A fucking son of Poseidon.  He rides waves with this sort of tactile technique that Zayn doesn’t think can be replicated, just a smooth transition from board to vertical and nothing like that wobbly surfing style he’s known Louis and Niall for.  He scrapes the edge of waves, glides through a funnel.  When the wave breaks, he rides through it with a soft lean and a tight smile like he’s trying to impress someone – maybe Zayn – before hitting a floater on the smaller ones.

Zayn bites on his lip, the smoke seeping out through his nose while Liam zigzags and manages through a top-turn even though nothing’s really been catching for the past half-hour.  Just simple shit, low budget waves that are laughable but Liam makes them look like a raging tsunami.

He’s a fucking _dream_ out there.

Sweat gathers and pools in the hollow of Zayn’s throat as he stares –

Because that’s what it is.  He’s _staring_ and smiling and feeling the sheer thrust of his heart right in his larynx.

He tries not to wreck his hair when Liam ditches his longboard in the sand, giggling at the way Niall’s still making sloppy moves in the shallow waters, boogie boarding up the shore before dropping into a pile in Harry’s lap.

Liam pushes back slick hair, aloha-print board shorts riding indecently low on his hips until Zayn can make out all of the shiny muscles in his stomach and the sharp definition along his hips and abdomen.  He’s got damp hair matted to his chest, right along the soft surfaces of his stomach and Zayn, unconsciously, drags a slow tongue along his lips at the way the soaked shorts outline his cock and stick to his strong thighs.

He’s moving at a half-jog until he’s collapsing by Zayn’s feet, crawling up the sand until he’s sat next to Zayn.  He shoots Zayn a crooked smile with shiny drops of leftover surf sliding from his pink lips to his sharp jaw and Zayn wants to touch the freshly shaven skin immediately but –

“Hey,” Liam sighs, his voice fond and rough from the water, “those things are bad for you.”

Zayn chases the edge of his grin off another puff, tipping his head back before blowing the smoke away from Liam.  The sun flares in the sky like the cherry of a blunt – bright and orange and vivid.

 _So are you_ , he thinks but bites on his smile instead, knocking their knees together and watching the way the excess ocean water stains his shorts dark.  He flicks away the last of his cigarette, considers lighting up another just to calm the ripple of goosebumps racing up his arms at their closeness but curls his fingers into the scratchy material of his shorts instead.

“I’ll quit,” Zayn mumbles around his bottom lip, looking away with a smile before attaching _‘for you’_ and hides it by adding, “one day.”

“Fucking liar,” Liam laughs and Zayn has to look – well, _gaze_ because it sounds polite and accurate – at Liam just to catch a view of that smile, the way he’s immediately blushing under the weight of Zayn’s eyes.

He watches Liam absently brush fingers through his hair, unsettling it until it’s sticking up everywhere.

Zayn grins and feels like an idiot because he knows his own hair is a spiky tornado but maybe, in the mirror this morning while debating on whether or not to accept Liam’s invitation for a day in the sun, he was going for this look.

He gives Liam a nonchalant shrug as if to say what his lips can’t and Liam shoots him this dumb smile that Zayn can’t help but be fond of.

Liam’s wet fingers are soft and smooth when they trace small shapes against Zayn’s arm, leaving behind slick marks that glitter under the sun.  He’s outlining the tiger high on Zayn’s shoulder, bottom lip clenched between white teeth with pink cheeks and an even pinker nose and Zayn’s been thinking about kissing him for hours.

For _days_.

Since that moment in the drug store with OMD in the background and a pack of cigarettes in his hand and –

“Hey,” Liam says, quieter like the world is listening to only them, “is this okay?”

Zayn holds a helpless noise in his throat, a small whimper that he’ll wrinkle his nose at later, and nudges back into Liam’s touch.  He needs another cigarette and fresh oxygen and that stupid scent of metallic waters, board wax, salt water taffy to leave him alone.

“I’ve been chatting with my mom,” Liam says when their silence grows loud, their hollowed out breaths built on Liam’s fingers over his skin and Zayn’s knee pressed to Liam’s.

Zayn blinks up, the copper taste of blood his first indication he’s been gnawing his lip too harshly.

“I’ve been looking at graduate school for some time,” Liam admits, his thumb automatically pressed to Zayn’s mouth to smear away the blood.  The sting of salt in the wound is not nearly as heavy as the small frown crossing Liam’s lips, the way his eyes go from light almond to something sadder.

“Really?”

Liam nods, lips curving into a distinct smile.  “Just knocking around with the idea.  And this intern thing I’m doing at the pharmacy – I mean, it helps with credits.  To get in somewhere good.  A strong program.”

Zayn nods but he can’t focus past the white noise and _London, London, right here next to you_ in his head.

“She wants me to finish school.  Get a proper degree like I planned,” Liam adds, swallowing to make the words come but they’re garbled like weak tides and shallow waves, “She wants to – well, she’s offered to take Jacks and Belle for like, I dunno, a year or so.  Just so I don’t have to put off school because it was so hard trying to take care of two toddlers and finishing college.  I barely passed most of my classes and had to take up weekend courses just to graduate.”

Zayn nudges a little closer, maybe for the comfort or just the way Liam’s skin is so warm, alive.  His fingers press into the drenched fabric of Liam’s shorts, catching water on the tips like dew.

Liam laughs, still looking down at the press of their thighs.  “I remember sleeping through half of my chem courses ‘cause Jacks was going through his terrible twos and Belle didn’t sleep well at night back then,” he says, his voice dropping out.  “Nobody but me and them, really.  I had a rotation of babysitters before I met Haz and his family.  His sister Gemma took them on weekends so I could study and his parents are the ones who got me into Lou’s daycare, funded the whole thing themselves.”

Zayn nods along, unsteady fingers running the line of Liam’s forearm, a thumb pressed to each chevron stained underneath.

“Bless them because,” Liam pauses, a quiet stutter in his breath when Zayn almost pulls away –

But he doesn’t.  He rotates his hand and slicks it up Liam’s bicep until he hears everything even out.

Everything but his own heart.

“My mom and dad would take great care of them, I know,” Liam huffs, trying to laugh but the noise he produces is weak.  “And I want to give them a good future, y’know?  Finish up school, look into other programs so I can get a steady job but – “

The waves crack like thunder and, in the background, he can hear Harry and Niall’s laugh mingle with Annabelle’s giggles and Jackson’s chasing a turtle up the shore but it’s all out of focus.

It’s all just static with Liam shrinking and the sun bleeding out vicious heat on their skin.

“I don’t want to miss out on their lives, right?  I just,” Liam hums, soft eyelashes flicking small drops of water away, “It’d be for the best, okay?  But they’re – I don’t want to miss _them_.  Miss anything.”

Zayn’s fingers pause high on Liam’s arm, just near the round of his shoulder.  He feels swallowed in the current even though he’s still dry, so far from the ocean.

He follows instinct – the fucking asshole – and finds his fingers in Liam’s hair, pushing it back and off his forehead.  He waits until Liam lifts his chin, his crinkled eyes, until he can see the blush low on his cheeks.

A smile crawls over his lips and he shoves it against Liam’s shoulder, kissing it gently until his tongue tastes the sharp tang of salt water.

“You don’t have to,” he whispers and follows the line of Liam’s shoulder until the wake of goosebumps falls into his vision.

“But you’re going to London, right?” Liam asks and Zayn’s frown is instant, shocking them both until Liam shakes his head, pushes out a shaky smile in return.  “Sorry.  I shouldn’t have – “

Zayn swallows a sigh but his fingers press deeper into Liam’s skin until the muscles stop fighting back.

“I picked up an extra shift this evening but,” Zayn halts when Liam looks up with this hopeful, promising gaze and he’s screwed.

He knows it and fighting it feels so pointless now.

“Maybe I could come by after?  We could chill for a bit.  Sounds cheesy or stupid, yeah?”

Liam shakes his head with a snicker and they’re so close now, foreheads almost touching and lips parted like the words aren’t enough.  Like maybe they could kiss out the things they haven’t said but –

“Zee!”

Annabelle stumbles up with a football between her small hands and a confused expression.  She cocks her head, blinking at them and Liam chokes out a laugh, reaching out to swipe a hand through her soft hair.

“Play with me,” she begs, trying to balance herself in the sand.

“Oh Belle,” Liam smirks and their shoulders brush like sharp electric, knees still pressed together, “I’m sure Zayn wouldn’t – “

Zayn can’t stop himself.  He’s pushing to his feet, dusting off the invisible sand and the heaviness they haven’t named before smiling down at her.

“No, s’cool,” he says assuredly and Annabelle’s grin is wide, contagious from so many feet below.  He palms the ball even though he’s no good at football, not like he imagines Harry is or know Niall can be.  He winks at her before adding, “C’mon little one.”

They run up into the sand with Liam’s laughter hanging in his ears.  He’s shit at this – barely able to do a few kips of the ball, half-balancing it on a foot before losing his footing – but Annabelle giggles into her tiny hands, fumbles with the ball and chases him almost all the way to the damp shore.  They pass the ball back and forth and – _fuck_ – Zayn tries so hard to be good.

No, he’s tries to be _great_ even though Niall’s shouting out pointers from Harry’s lap and Jackson’s following them with his eyes.

And he sort of wants to be brilliant at this for her.  Maybe for Jackson.

But mostly for Liam.

He tries so hard to impress Liam and, in the hazy sun and on this little sandy turf, he keeps catching Liam watching him.  Gazing and smiling and he wonders if Liam’s heart is stuck in his throat like Zayn’s is.

Or if maybe it’s just the sun in his eyes casting illusions of Liam frowning because this is only for a summer.

Just a few months and barely enough time to recreate the definition of _nothing_.

 

/+/

 

He feels alive like visible neon electricity –

After his shift, he rolls down the windows, blasts Frank Ocean and _‘my fingertips and my lips, they burn from the cigarettes, Forrest Gump, you run my mind boy’_ blares down the Pacific Coast Highway with the salty ocean on his tongue and the wind in his hair and Chinese takeout in the passenger seat.

He drives all the way to that little bungalow sat on the corner of the beach and his hands don’t stop shaking all the way to the front door.

They eat a late dinner, Jackson and Annabelle still bright-eyed even though its half past eleven and the moon is a sliver-blue cannonball in the ocean of soft purples that make up the sky.  Liam scoops up Neapolitan ice cream into small, chipped bowls and crowds them all onto that worn-down couch while Zayn flips on _Iron Man_.

And it’s so –

He’s been looking for a word for over an hour but nothing sticks to his tongue stronger than _astonishing_.  And it sinks into his marrow, wraps tightly around his bones, infects his cells and circulates through his blood and it’s sort of like this –

Annabelle curled up in Liam’s lap halfway through the film with her cherry lips stained by chocolate.  Their knees presses together, ankles brushing, Jackson wedged between their thighs and whispering all of his favorite parts to Zayn until his eyes are heavy and his fingers are twisted in Zayn’s flannel.  Liam’s hand in his hair and empty bowls by their feet and the quiet hum of the house with their warm bodies shifting closer every few beats.

His lips itching for a cigarette – or a kiss – and Liam nosing his shoulder with a symphony of Jackson and Annabelle’s soft snoring in his ear and –

 _Oh_.

It sets a shiver to his spine when, together, they carry limp bodies to opposing bedrooms and Zayn presses a small kiss to Jackson’s temple when he blinks awake for a second.  He’s smiling in the shadows, his mouth half-covered by a thin blanket and Zayn doesn’t think he’ll ever get over the whispered _‘g’night Batman’_ Jackson attaches to his lulled breathing when Zayn flips on the night light and shuts the door.

He’s certain he’ll never get over the way Liam smiles at him from across the hallway, his spine pressed to the wall with soft hair, half-lidded eyes turning into crinkles, his skin a pale tan from the moon and –

 _Astonishing_.

It fits beautifully on his tongue when Liam tangles their fingers together before dragging Zayn towards his bedroom.

 

/+/

 

They linger in the doorway, all of the calm shadows shifting over Liam’s room until it’s nothing but an abyss of whites and silvers and edgy ultramarine violets.

There’s hesitation in Liam’s eyes, doubt in Zayn’s hands and they sway into each other but never pass the doorway.

Liam presses him into the doorjamb, his spine sitting uncomfortably with a soft palm cupping his jaw, strong fingers high on his blush-stained cheeks, dark eyes holding him still and they’re slow like honey.  Casual and unaffected by the moon or the silence or the way they naturally shift their hips until Liam has a thigh slotted between Zayn’s legs and their chest shoved together.

Just a pair of pink lips stained red by nervous teeth whenever Zayn glances at them.  Liam’s riotous heartbeat against Zayn’s chest and Zayn has a hand on Liam’s hip to keep him steady –

No, to keep him _close_.

His fingers catch in a few belt loops on Liam’s jeans, their bare feet shifting on the cold floor.  He tilts his head at Liam like _‘what are you waiting for?’_ and Liam laughs shyly, leaning in but they don’t kiss.

They share oxygen and smiles and teeter until the ice almost breaks.

It _shatters_ and Zayn wants to swim but he can’t so he drowns until Liam tugs him back to the surface.

“Thinking about something?” Zayn teases, lips brushing but – _not yet_.

Liam grins, cheeks dusted pink even in the half-shadows over his face.  “ _You_.”

“Hey,” Zayn smirks, fingers knocking Liam’s chin up and those brown eyes are like gold leafs.  “Yeah?  What else?”

There’s something shameful and curious in Liam’s eyes, the way he lowers his brow and his mouth quirks just a little at the corners.  “Been thinking about your mouth and,” Liam tilts his head a little and Zayn’s fingers scratch out a _‘tell me more’_ like an adolescent before Liam can freeze up.  “Like, how you’d feel.  What you taste like.  Can barely control it, thinking about how good we’d be, y’know, without the clothes and all.”

They teeter, living in seconds that consist of almost and not quite until Zayn presses his thigh higher up, nudging it against Liam’s cock.

Liam squirms to get closer when Zayn shoves their mouths together.  Just that familiar tug of war Zayn knows he’s experienced when kissing someone before except, with Liam, he’s willingly being drug across the line.  He’s got a hand in Liam’s hair, hips rotating just enough to feel the firm outline of Liam’s cock in his loose jeans and Liam’s whimpering against his mouth.

They refuse to move from this spot – this is still too new and that bedroom looks so huge under the eye of the moon and he’s terrified.

Instead, he mouths at Liam’s jaw and scratches his teeth down Liam’s throat, bruises a pretty mark just above his collar and Liam’s fingers under his shirt produce involuntary shivers he won’t quite regret.

“Fuck,” Liam moans when Zayn draws up, right against his mouth, his tongue to the seam.

Zayn grins, parts his lips and lets Liam taste leftover soy sauce and sweet vanilla.

Their hips rut and wriggle until the friction is this delicious heat deep, deeper in their bones.  Liam’s stubble bites his lips and his fingers tug on the waistband on Liam’s jeans until they slip lower.  They’re almost synchronized with their kisses except Liam’s nervous and Zayn’s unpracticed but he loves the way they fumble, their noses bumping, their teeth accidentally biting foreign flesh.

When Liam uses sneaky fingers under his chin to tip his head up, smiles into the hollows of Zayn’s neck and squirms a hand between their aching bodies, he relaxes until his heart slows and –

He can’t quite get a song he doesn’t remember the name of and has only heard once out of his head.  Just a short circuit pulse of _‘we’ll leave the lights on until the next song, who’s gonna take it off?_ ’ in his ears while Liam clumsily pops the button on his jeans, drags down the zip with his teeth gnawing gently at Zayn’s bottom lip.

It feels like a hurricane – quick hands, colliding lips, muffled noises, a soft chant of _‘yes, yes, yes’_ from his lips to Liam’s tongue.

His jeans tangle around his ankles and Liam looks up through his long lashes, his eyes crowded by the shadows but they’re dark and blown wide just by the bliss alone.

He’s got swollen lips with Liam’s trembling fingers on his waist, tugging at the band of his boxers, cheeks glossed by blush and Zayn nudges a few fingers to Liam’s chin for a quick kiss, a quiet _‘we can stop right here dude’_ that Liam laughs off, swatting Zayn’s hand away.

“S’not what I want to happen,” Liam mumbles against his lips.

“What do you – “

“I want your cock,” Liam says, a little shamelessly but wholly embarrassed when he looks up.  He bites his lower lip in this indecently innocent way and Zayn’s dick strains against the soft cotton, soaking the material with precome until Liam adds, “If you, y’know, if s’cool with you.  Just let me – I want to suck you off.”

Zayn groans and he’s too far gone to reject the idea – even if Liam is a novice and Zayn doesn’t think he’ll last long enough – so he smacks his head against the doorframe and sighs happily when Liam doesn’t tug away.

Teeth bite out another mark to his collar, an outline around the Arabic that’s soothed by a slick tongue before Liam’s sliding to his knees while yanking down Zayn’s boxers.

In the shadows and under the throb of his heart, Liam looks vulnerable on his knees.  Zayn’s cock brushes his cheek, the sticky precome staining the skin shiny and Liam looks up with suggestive eyes and a careful hand wrapping around the base.  Just an offbeat stroke, clumsy and completely inexperienced, that has Liam’s thumb brushing the head and his pinky pressing into the sac until Zayn trembles.

There’s a choir of _‘I came all this way just to see you take it off’_ in the back of his mind that he can’t contain when Liam licks out a pink tongue, eyes Zayn’s dick and flutters his eyelashes against his cheek when he leans in.

He jolts when Liam’s lips circle the head but he strains to keep his hips still.  He claws at the wall and pinches his lip between his teeth to stifle the moan when Liam adds tongue.  Just a flick into the slit, gathering thickening precome and Zayn _can’t_ look at him.

He shut his eyes and smacks his head to the doorway to keep his knees from going weak.

Liam is a little shameless in his effort and Zayn thinks – or _tries to_ – that he is amazingly good at sucking dick.

He’s soft kisses down the shaft, lips shiny and swollen before he mouths sloppily around the head, a tongue peeking out every few beats just to learn every curve and vein.  He’s tremendously enthusiastic, careful with his teeth, swallowing Zayn as far as he can with prickling tears at the corners of his eyes.

His cheeks turn a gorgeous pink when Zayn whispers _‘you’re so good, fuck your lips’_ in the echo of his husky pants and he’s trying to be quiet, he swears, but Liam sits back on his heels and sucks the head until it’s glittery with his spit and Zayn almost loses it.

 _Almost_.

He tangles a hand in Liam’s hair just for the connection and Liam fucking _mewls_.  He begs silently, licking down the shaft again to press scratchy kisses along Zayn’s balls and back up with a smile.  He slacks his jaw, just a little, and Zayn’s helpless when he slowly fucks into Liam’s mouth for a few uncoordinated thrusts.

“Oh, Christ, babe,” he moans, fingering over Liam’s scalp when he relaxes for Zayn.  “Your mouth, dude.  Taking it so well.”

Zayn loses his breath on the way Liam takes it with stretched pink lips and a hand buried in his jeans, working a dark stain into the denim every time Zayn stutters his hips.

His legs shake with a determination and Liam starts to bob his head again.  He swallows around the head – _perfect_ – and uses his spare hand to drag Zayn’s hips _forward_ rather than back – _fucking incredible_ – and they can’t keep quiet long enough but the wind howls outside loud enough to drown their keening voices.

Liam pulls out with a filthily wet noise, gasping, feathering his tongue around the head until it blurts out thick drops.  His eyes scrunch with a smile when he looks up and Zayn – he grabs the back of Liam’s head and forces him back on just to keep himself sane.

“Getting off on this, babe?” Zayn teases with a shaky voice.  Liam groans around him, his hand freezing for a second before he starts up again with slow strokes and an eager tongue pressed to the underside of Zayn’s dick.  “That’s good.  Lemme see.”

Liam leans back, just a little, the foreskin drawn back as a pink head peeks through the zip, and Zayn crowds Liam halfway down his cock shamefully.

He’s not expecting it, when Liam trembles on his knees with a pliant jaw and a breathy moan but he watches Liam come across the hardwood floor with a twist of his lips.  It’s nothing but a flash of the pink head, an uncut dick sitting fat and throbbing between Liam’s tightly squeezed fingers and Zayn loses it.

His fingers tangle in Liam’s hair and he bites hard into his own fist to silence the roar in his chest before he goes white-hot, a fucking inferno.

He’s breathless and the world spins, spins, spins when he comes across Liam’s tongue.  Liam sucks him clean like he’s still desperate for it, still untrained and new to this, kissing down the shaft while thumbing along his own dick for the last few spurts of come.

That lightheaded sensation refuses to leave him while Liam kisses along his bare stomach, swollen lips pressed to the heart tattoo and under his navel while dragging up Zayn’s jeans.  Their lips meet somewhere halfway between Liam standing and Zayn recovering his balance and Zayn tastes himself in all of the hidden parts of Liam’s mouth while they smile.

“Pretty good?” Liam grins against his lips but he’s still a little shy, uncoordinated smugness he’s trying to make believable.

“Pretty sick,” Zayn kisses back, swallowing down all of the affectionate words meant to replace the ones on his tongue.  “The best I’ve – it was good, dude.  You can, um, do that anytime you want, babe.”

Liam lights up like fucking fireworks in the sky and Zayn doesn’t try to restrain the way he adores that look alone.

The world goes still and quiet except for the echo of their hearts.  Liam presses their foreheads together and Zayn’s hand won’t – no, _can’t_ – leave Liam’s hair because he needs an anchor.

He needs something to fucking weigh him down because Liam makes him feel like he’s floating and that’s entirely too poetic for him to comprehend.

When they’re a little less restless and anxious with their fingers, skin still flushed, bruised lips chasing the last of an exhale, Zayn presses a thumb to the skin just beneath the birthmark on Liam’s neck and waits for the smile stretched over the round of a wide shoulder before he speaks.

“M’sorry tonight was sort of,” Zayn sniffs and feels the pulse of Liam’s heart right against his chest, “Well, it wasn’t very exciting, yeah?”

Liam laughs – this breathy noise that sprints up Zayn’s throat and knocks against his cheek before his lips do – and sways into him.

“You’re off your knob, man,” he says, accent a little more defined and everything coming out slow, dreamy like he’s still halfway in the high of post-bliss.

“M’not – “

Liam makes a disapproving noise and Zayn can pick out every shade of autumn brown in his eyes because he’s that close now, noses brushing and the slick of sweat down his throat shines in the moonlight.

“You,” Liam huffs, shaking his head.  “You have no idea, do you?  You’re just – don’t you get it Zayn?”

Zayn bites down on his lip and refuses to reply.

“Belle asks about you almost every five seconds when you’re gone,” Liam breathes with fingers sketching the nape of Zayn’s neck, pressing into the ink high on his spine, “And my son hasn’t spoken a word since Em – “

They both take in a harsh breath and Zayn doesn’t think he can push all of the tension out of Liam’s bones but his fingers soothe his tendons until he thinks he can.

“It’s you,” Liam stammers but there’s a layer of conviction _right there_.  “Fuck, I don’t know what you did but he’s talking again.  He hates for anyone but me to touch him but he likes you and I dunno how I’m s’pposed to word this ‘cause – “

Zayn swallows up all of the half-syllables and broken words and kisses Liam until his jaw goes slack, until there’s just thin breaths separating them.

And then, with fingers tugging gently through Zayn’s thick hair, Liam shyly asks, “Can you stay?  I mean, will you stay this time?”

Zayn teeters back into the firm archway.  There’s a pause in his breathing, an awkward tug to his lips and Liam’s blinking at the floor instead of his eyes, dragging his toes in the space between Zayn’s feet.  That beat of hesitance that lingers between them – _always, fucking always_ – pricks at his skin and Liam almost tugs away but –

“The couch, maybe?” Zayn offers because he can’t.

He’s not ready to go home.

Liam beams up at him, nods and gives away all of his thoughts when fingers slip into that space between the waistband of jeans and the sharp angle of Zayn’s hip.  They scratch at the skin until it stings.

“I’m just not sure I could,” Zayn jerks his head into the bedroom, into the still cool silence and the bed sitting on an old frame and he schools his breathing when Liam thumbs along _‘don’t think I won’t…’_ a little shamelessly.

“Yeah, s’cool, man,” Liam huffs with a tiny laugh, a lopsided grin.  “I’m okay with – s’cool, dude.”

Zayn nods and doesn’t plead for Liam to fill in all of the words he couldn’t say.

He’s comfortable in the void, in the _nothing_ that still sits between them.

 

/+/

 

He’s not asleep.

It’s somewhere between that place where everything goes fuzzy around the edges and the toxic neon Technicolor of a dream bleeds out when he feels careful fingers skimming the strong line of his cheekbone.

In the overlay of a dark living room he doesn’t really know with the blankets kicked off his bare feet, his hip wedged between two cushions on a ratty couch, the crickets singing a familiar tune just outside the window, Zayn blinks into focus and Liam’s leaning over him with a smile-frown hybrid on his lips.

He yawns, stretches out on the couch before lazy fingers curl around Liam’s wrist, a thumb pressed to the pulse point to slow the rhythm.  He blinks hard like an owl, smiles at Liam in his rumpled cotton shirt, loose joggers hanging off his hips, his hair perfectly out of place.  There’s still a hint of sex on his skin, masked by that always familiar surfboard wax and taffy and something like avocado or fresh lemons.

“Can’t sleep,” Liam whispers, his voice dragging and scratchy like cigarette smoke is trapped in his throat, “but, um, well – “

Zayn wishes he could say he hesitates.  He wishes there was a sting of doubt or just a nervous twitch to his lips but he grins and tugs on Liam’s wrist until he collapses and stretches along the couch with him.

They fit themselves along the fraying cushions, the couch squeaking loudly in the dead silence, with Liam’s spine pressed along Zayn’s chest.  He kicks back the scratchy duvet until it falls onto the floor next to the pair of wrinkled jeans he tugged off hours ago and he’s in nothing but boxers and a poorly fit tank but Liam doesn’t seem to mind.

He curls under Zayn’s arm and presses back and Zayn helplessly smiles into the cotton, sniffing until Liam’s scent intoxicates him.  Both of their arms wrap around Liam, feet tangling, everything warm and cautious in the dark.

“I haven’t,” Liam pauses with a hitch in his voice that Zayn wants to remove.  Instead, he brushes a thumb over Liam’s mouth until he’s ready to speak again.

“I haven’t slept well since Emily died.  I’ve tried.  I just can’t,” he admits with this hoarse voice that Zayn hates.  And then, when they’ve been quiet for too long, softer he says, “And I haven’t slept next to anyone but Jacks and Belle either.”

Zayn doesn’t speak but his lips brush over the nape of Liam’s neck and his arms tighten around him.  He finds one of Liam’s hands, without sight, and their fingers twist until the knot in both of their chests loosens.

“This okay?” he asks like Liam always does and Liam presses closer for the _‘yes’_ he hasn’t learned to say yet.

He waits, awake and nervous, until Liam’s breathing evens out and the nirvana prickling over his skin at the happy sigh Liam releases in his sleep shocks a new feeling to Zayn’s system –

 _Defenseless_.

It takes him an hour and shoving down the urge to crawl away for a cigarette before he presses his mouth to Liam’s hair for a whispered _‘I don’t know what to do with you’_ and then he finally falls asleep.

 

/+/

 

“Who’re you fucking?”

Zayn looks up from the sketchpad carefully balanced on his knees, fingers smeared with color, and blinks at Doniya for a long moment.  Her arms are folded over her chest, a quirky smile on her lips, the heavy sun burning behind her.

He’s watching Louis clumsily try new tricks on his longboard from the picnic table.  His lungs are loose from the cigarettes he’s been chaining for an hour, nothing but clear blue sky above and the weeping shadows from the palm nearby keeping him cool.  He’s letting the day waste away outside of Grovestown before his shift starts up and Doniya, on her lunch break, seems more amused by the way his eyebrows scrunch and the stain of something else to his cheeks than finishing the chicken burritos he brought her.

“C’mon you little shit,” she grins, reaching out to rumple his hair, “who is she?  Or who is _he_?  Whichever.  I know you’re screwing somebody.”

Louis stumbles off his board and Zayn heaves out a thick exhale of smoke, narrowing his eyes in the fog.

“What makes you think – “

Doniya barks out a laugh and Louis – _the fucking bastard_ – is already hopping onto the shaky table next to him, curling an arm around his tense shoulders.

“It’s obvious,” she explains, shrugging.  “You’ve been a lot happier lately and you’re never happy, Zee.  Ever.”

“I am.”

“You’re not,” Louis and Doniya say together, smiling.

Zayn rolls his eyes and shrinks into himself a little, eyes darting back to his sketch of a surfboard, a crashing wave, soft brown eyes peering back at him from the page.

“Plus you’ve been spending a lot of time away from home – “

“Nothing new,” Zayn points out but he thinks his argument is muted when Doniya arches an eyebrow at him.

“And you drug your lazy arse into the house just after six the other morning,” Doniya grins and the whistle of the wind in the background is drown by the noise Louis makes.

“Walk of shame,” Louis mumbles.

Zayn elbows him back, hides his own smirk while his fingertips brush over the fading bruise Liam’s hands left on his hip during the night while they slept.

“So quit fucking about,” Doniya says with a laugh, messing his hair more before he smacks her hand away.  “Just admit it, Zee.”

“Nothing to admit,” Zayn frowns and it almost feels like the truth –

Except, in the depths of his stomach, it’s not.  Not when Liam’s fingers were caught in his hair, slow kisses when the rising sun blinded them in the living room.  Cold feet brushing on the couch and Jackson yawning loudly when he stumbled in, crawling between them to fall back asleep against Liam’s chest with tiny fingers curling up the fabric of Zayn’s tank.

Not when they smiled at each other in the doorway with sleepy eyes and that hesitation like _‘goodbye’_ wasn’t the word they wanted to exchange.

And not when Liam curled fingers to the back of his neck, foreheads pressed together, with a grin just to whisper _‘see you soon babe’_ like he was promising a little more.

“Whatever,” Doniya shrugs, turning away to thumb out a quick text.  “Be home for dinner?  Think mum is feeling better today and Safaa is dying for your attention.”

Zayn zones in on his sketch and it takes him a few minutes to notice the shaking in his hands and the rapid pulse of his heart.

“Yeah, I’ll try,” he mumbles and he’s so, so grateful when she doesn’t argue with him for it.

“Alright man?” Louis asks when Doniya sneaks back into the store with a heavy arm still around Zayn’s shoulders.

Zayn tries to shrug casually but he can’t.  He tugs another cigarette from the pack, twists his phone in his palm before lighting up.

“No.”

He loves Louis, he swears he does because he doesn’t bother to ask.  He squeezes Zayn tightly and hops off the picnic table to practice his ollies while Zayn huffs through his first couple of drags, never letting the smoke stick, and he _glares_ at the lock screen on his phone –

Just some silly picture he caught of Jackson and Annabelle after dinner.  He can still hear Annabelle in his ear – her giggle, her soft _‘do I look pretty Zee?’_ – and he frowns at Jackson’s toothy grin, the crinkle of his eyes just like –

Zayn pockets his phone and refuses to think.

At least, not until the cigarette is burned down to the filter and this _nothing_ in his chest starts to speak a little louder.

“S’nothing, Lou.  I mean, we’re not – there’s nothing really going on,” Zayn admits in a scratchy voice that threatens to betray him when Louis looks up from his skateboard.  “Just some summer bullshit, alright?  I’ll be gone and he’ll just be – “

Louis nods sharply.  “He’ll just be a memory, right?  Just some fun in the sun, dude.  ‘s how it should be.”

Zayn offers him a shaky grin and the look Louis shoots him isn’t convincing.

It’s a little sad and _‘he’s a good guy’_ doesn’t spring from Louis’ mouth but the corners of his lips tilt downwards and Zayn fucking hates himself.

He hates how his chest isn’t hollow anymore and he’s still trying to figure out when three people started filling it up so rapidly.

 

/+/

 

The day is still too new for him.  The early sun wakes the city from a purple haze and shines across the coast in pale gold as he drives up the highway.  The world is just a dusty blur in the rearview and _‘it’s just a spark but it’s enough to keep me going’_ drums in his ear from the shitty speakers as the wind drags all of the sleep from his eyes.  It tingles up his skin, smears a smile across his lips just before he pulls up to that small bungalow with sand for a backyard.

The front door is unlocked and he wanders around inside until the shriek of familiar laughter and the paper trail of flour dusted over the floorboards leads him into the kitchen.

Harry’s there with his curls a powdery white from the flour, a wooden spoon in one hand with a recipe book opened in the other.  Annabelle’s somewhere by his side, in a tiny apron with some silly chef hat made out of paper pressing down her morning curls and a giant, toothless smile.  She’s gazing up with this loud, loud giggle every time the pages get stuck together from the batter on Harry’s fingers.  There’s six bowls of raw cookie dough and sugar spilled on the counter and an opened milk carton threatening to spill over in the background.

A lazy smile spreads over Harry’s cherry lips when he finds Zayn in the archway, his eyebrows wriggling a _hello_ while Jackson stands off in one corner, only partially covered in their sticky mess.

“Mate,” Harry echoes, reaching to tug Zayn in but he throws a quick hand up in defense.  Harry doesn’t frown – never does – and shakes the spoon at Zayn with an accusingly little smirk.  “Have you come to help us?  We’re having a cookie day, the three of us.”

“Sounds wicked,” Zayn laughs and that half-grin on his lip stretches when he catches Jackson giggling behind his hand, freckles standing out against the blush smothering his face.

“Zee!” Annabelle draws out with this happy noise that her tiny frame can’t contain, “They’re gonna be so, um, pretty.  Like – like fairy cookies!”

“Sugar cookies, babe,” Harry corrects, snorting.  Zayn swears he’s reading from a British cookbook on how to make a proper trifle rather than bake something but he doesn’t admonish Harry, not in this hurricane of baking products and sticky children.

“Sounds sick, princess,” he smiles and something stutters in his heart when she absolutely lights up at the word.

“Don’t encourage her,” Harry mumbles with a quirk to his lips and eyes buried in a page about sirloin and mash rather than chocolate chip cookies.

“Someone should stop encouraging _you_ , bro,” Zayn laughs and Harry flicks an eyebrow upwards at the way Zayn’s eyes bunch up with his smile.

“Zee,” Annabelle sighs, still so fond but confused with outstretched hands covered in sprinkles and flour and batter, “Papa needs ta help.  Find him.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Harry whispers to her with a cheeky grin and she looks lost and Zayn nearly tosses the rolling pin at Harry’s floppy curls, his lips curved into a smirk he hopes never fades.

Harry jerks his head towards the hall with a softer smile, something like the ache of a rising sun that Zayn’s certain he will never forget.  “Bedroom,” he whispers, wriggling his eyebrows at Zayn.  “In case you were wondering, bro.  Harnessing his _qi_ or something.  I’m not really sure what surf bums do these days between breaking waves and downtime.”

Zayn nods and conceals his blush by scratching at his early stubble but his grin knocks his fingers back and Harry shoots him this affectionate look that says what their words won’t.

He strides across the floor until he’s next to Jackson, fingers shifting gently over his scalp until Jackson blinks up with a half-smile.  Zayn grins back, tugs a rolled up copy of the _World’s Finest_ from the back pocket of his jeans and shoves it into two small hands.

“Thought you’d like this,” he whispers, his voice still low and throaty from his morning cigarette, and something clings like a vice to his heart when pink washes Jackson’s cheeks and his eyes light up.

Tender, tiny arms circle his thigh for a hug and he presses back into the touch with his fingers still shaping Jackson’s half-quiff.  His heart races in his ears and his cheeks ache from the smile but his breath stops short at the way Jackson’s eyes crinkle, his nose scrunches, and the quiet whisper of _‘you’re wicked Zee’_ throbs in his head all the way back to the archway.

“Hey,” Harry calls and Zayn glances over his shoulder with a sharp smile he can’t remove.

Something incredibly warm softens all of the features of Harry’s face and Zayn swears he stops breathing until –

“Just wanted to say we – _I’m_ really glad you came around,” Harry says with dimples and cherry lips and this certain kind of stardust in his eyes, “You’re pretty sick, bro.  And they love you.”

Zayn bites his lip with harsh teeth, nodding at Harry.  He blinks at the way Harry hoists Annabelle up onto the counter to help him roll out the dough and how Jackson finds a corner in the kitchen to read his comic and he starts to wonder when London became just a destination but California – _right here_ feels like a last stop.

Like a _home_.

 

/+/

 

The still early sunlight spills through the bedroom window in fuzzy golden squares and bleary circles that kick glittered dust into the air and paints everything a soft amber.

Wrinkled scrubs are crumpled by the messy bed, the sheets and duvet and a mound of pillows depicting a tornado across the lumpy mattress.  Shredded jeans, a pile of Converse, old Urban Outfitters boxer-briefs leading a trail towards the window where Liam –

Liam is facing the window, some rough looking Firewire board propped against the wall.  Clips of the sun run the length of his bare back, all of the muscles stretched and twisting as he drags a chunk of neon green Day-Glo wax over the surface.

Zayn watches from the doorway, pressed to a spot that feels familiar from a few nights ago.  He can’t help the smile on his lips as the muscles trapped under skin strain from the tension in his forearms, the long line of his spine spun gold from the sun and the matching dimples at the bottom of his spine visible.  Old, comfortable joggers sit low on his hips and he’s bare underneath, the gentle jut of his arse exposed.

He’s different in this light – with strong muscles under gentle skin and wide shoulders a sharp contrast to a small torso and bare feet shifting over the floor as he stretches to cover the entire surface.  The ink across his forearms stands out, the hair at the nape of his neck making Zayn’s fingers twitch, the line of the sun turning soft when it hangs across the side of Liam’s face.

Zayn tugs at the collar of his loose-fit Henley, thumbs across the start of an erection in his jeans and hesitation is trapped in his tendons, pulsing through his blood because he can’t quite walk in –

But bravery sinks into his marrow and he nudges at instinct to toe his shoes off at the door and cross the threshold.

Something gentle, sweet, foreign plays in the background and Liam hums along to it while Zayn pads over the floor, closer and closer –

The stress sewn into his muscles loosens the moment Zayn covers his hand on the board, fingers twining and he shifts forward until he’s pressed against Liam’s spine.

A noise is caught in Liam’s throat that Zayn laughs at, coasting his dry lips across the line of Liam’s shoulder, his free fingers curling around Liam’s hip and they find a nervous rhythm under the sun and music.

“Hey,” Zayn whispers into the crook of his neck, stutters at the smile Liam throws him and everything on the inside speeds up while they move so slow, “No one’s watching.  You can – just let me?”

Liam’s laugh is breathy and silent but he nudges into Zayn and there’s nothing artificial about the shimmy of his hips or the way he playfully grinds back.

“Been practicing?” he asks and Zayn bites an approving sound to the map of skin along his tendons.  He kisses the freckles, follows the constellations all the way to Liam’s neck and breathes in grape surf wax and leftover ocean and he can’t stop grinning at the _‘you’re the light out on the sea a twirling seed blown off the tree’_ in the distance.

“Been thinking about you,” Zayn replies, flinching at how soft and sweet his voice is and the way Liam shivers with the noise.

They twist a little with Zayn’s chin over Liam’s shoulder, fingers pressed to the sticky surface of the board, bare feet brushing as they try to attune their bodies to the music.  It’s awkward – _like always_ – and thrilling – _like it’s never been_ – and he can’t school his breathing when Liam rolls the muscles in his shoulders, gently knocks their heads together.

“You came – “

“Not yet,” Zayn teases, nudging his cock to the line of Liam’s arse and the denim and thick cotton is too dense of a barrier to provide the sort of friction he needs.

“ – in my bedroom,” Liam finishes with a giggle, squeezing around Zayn’s fingers.  “I didn’t think – “

Zayn nods and they twist just to find the right angle, lips brushing tentatively.  He holds the press of Liam’s mouth, flicks a tongue over canines and trembles with _‘rolling on the waves, slipping out of reach’_ when Liam pulls back.

“Didn’t think I wanted to see you,” Zayn mumbles into the crook of Liam’s neck, fingers pushing into Liam’s hip for little bruises he wants to lick at during the night.  “Sounds stupid, I know.  It’s fucked up.”

“S’not,” Liam hums and his eyes crinkle just a little when Zayn bites over his birthmark.  “But we don’t have to talk about it.”

“No,” Zayn grins with teasing fingers sliding beneath the waistband, dragging over coarse hairs that spring beneath his touch before he circles Liam’s slow rising cock, “We don’t have’ta, yeah?”

Liam shakes his head, teeth gnawing at his bottom lip, breath quickening.

The wax leaves their fingers sticky and Zayn pulls away just to drag them over Liam’s ribs, across his hip to tug down his joggers.  He smiles when Liam reaches back, uncoordinated and awkward, to thumb open the button with shaky fingers tugging down the zip of his jeans.

His lips quirk over Liam’s shoulder blade when he mewls softly like he’s scared to be loud, to be anything aggressive and Zayn –

He catches his teeth on the top of Liam’s spine and finds a mostly empty bottle of lube kicked near the bed to coat his fingers shiny.  They slide slickly down Liam’s spine, leaving a trail of glitter and gloss.  He spreads Liam with sticky fingers, grins down at the way Liam’s muscles strain just slightly –

Like he’s nervous.  Like he’s thought about it but –

“I’m not gonna – “

“You could,” Liam moans sweetly, pushing back when Zayn’s fingers circle his hole, artificial shine and pink skin making promises Zayn can’t refuse.

“Not yet, babe,” Zayn swears while scattering kisses to Liam’s skin, to the tense curve of his spine.  “But sometime soon, alright?  After a non-date – “

Liam giggles and gasps when a cold finger nudges his hole, legs spreading to offer Zayn more room with a heavy dick curved towards his belly, foreskin drawn tight around the head.

“ – and dessert and something stupid like candlelight or on the beach or in that dumb SUV of yours,” Zayn adds, his thumb catching on the rim while his fingers fasten around the shaft of Liam’s throbbing cock.

“Or maybe,” Liam offers with a shudder, with _‘I smell honey in your hair, I see longing in your stare’_ in the background, “At your favorite place in the whole world.”

Zayn smirks, carefully eases a finger to the first knuckle inside of Liam and waits for his quivering bottom lip to still before he whispers, “That’s probably right here.”

Liam laughs out a surprised noise, nudges his cheek to Zayn’s and floats back to the second knuckle with pain pinching his face.  He’s tight all around Zayn, so brand new and unaccustomed to this and Zayn can tell.  He can feel it in the slow stretch of muscle.

“Asshole.”

“Shut up,” Zayn smiles back but fastens pretty poetry and unmentionable words to Liam’s lips while twisting his fingers inside of him and stroking his cock.

His fingers stick and slide around Liam’s cock from the wax, the excess lube he dripped on them and he listens to all of Liam’s breathy pants with this irreversible need to protect him.  He covers him, nudges him towards the wall and drips firm kisses to his spine when he adds a second finger.

Liam gasps, his spine arching in this inadvertently beautiful way as he sucks in a sharp breath.  “Feels so,” he stammers but his hips rotate and shove back, “feels so full, man.  Like, fuck, s’nice.”

“Yeah?” Zayn breathes but doesn’t pull out, pressing up a little more and circles Liam’s whimper with his mouth.

Liam squeezes his eyes shut with fingers splayed on the wall, half on the surfboard, a tense jaw letting little hisses and whimpers through his teeth.  He careens his hips towards Zayn’s fingers, his thigh pressing to the thick line of Zayn’s cock still trapped behind baggy plaid boxers.  He tries to spread his legs but they’re trapped by his joggers and Zayn laughs into his shoulder, rutting up against him.

Zayn feels Liam’s cock fatten up between his fingers, thick dribbles of precome soaking his fingers between the gasps and soft breaths Liam’s trying to restrain.

They’re still swaying, still out of rhythm and unperfected but Zayn –

Fuck, he loves how their bodies know the beat and how their mouths meet between _‘oh won’t you break me open like the sky at the sunrise’_ and _‘hear the thunder in this quiet tremble inside’_ even if it’s not what he planned.

Even if this boy won’t leave his neurons and electrons and cells for just a moment.

His tongue licks at the salty sweat pooling around Liam’s throat.  He holds in a squeak of excitement when Liam blindly pulls down the front of his boxers, palms his cock until his skin glistens with precome.  The room is soaked in their musk, that tangy and unforgettable stain of sex that encourages Zayn.

“Relax, babe,” he chants with Liam’s heavy breaths in his ear, “open up for me.”

Liam keens, almost sobs when Zayn nudges up and curves down to find –

 _Oh_.

The way Liam’s body breaks and opens and succumbs to every little shine of sunlight steals Zayn’s breath.  When he knocks against Liam’s prostate – _right there_ – he grins and kisses something gentle to Liam’s shoulder at the way he chokes off a moan.

“Just a little more,” Zayn promises with a third finger nudging at Liam’s rim, with his cock poking just under Liam’s sac, with their bodies out of place.  “Doing so good.  So fucking tight but you sort of want it, right?”

“Zayn.”

“Just say it,” Zayn taunts with a smile, crewing deeper and pressing harder until Liam trembles against the wall.  “You like it, yeah?  How deep I’m getting.  How, fuck, relaxed you are for it, babe.  Like you’re almost ready for my dick, right?”

Liam whimpers, nods.  He thumps a fist to the wall and squeezes at Zayn’s cock until it blurts a stringy clear drop of precome that connects them from slit to the back of Liam’s thigh.

The twitch in Liam’s jaw when he heaves out husky breaths and twists his hips – for the push of Zayn’s fingers, for the thumb gentling back the foreskin – to the music like he’s in the calm of the storm drags a grin over Zayn’s mouth.

“Could get you off,” Zayn whispers along Liam’s neck, “or I could fuck you, babe.  I could let you _feel_ what I’m thinking.”

“What are you thinking?” Liam gasps with wide, blown eyes and a red bottom lip.  His cheeks are flushed pink like the sky at sunset and Zayn listens to _‘it took me by surprise all the hunger left your eyes’_ in the back of his mind.

 _That I don’t ever want to leave_ , he thinks but he licks just behind Liam’s ear to slow the words and presses his middle finger to those nerves again.

Liam’s leaking across his fingers, a steady stream of clear precome and he’s biting the back of his fist to subdue all of the noises.  He squirms against Zayn, losing all technique with his fingers around Zayn’s cock and when Zayn pulls his fingers free to fuck his cock along his exposed hole, Liam nudges back with a plead and a merciless whimper.

Zayn kisses him calm, wrapping strong fingers around his hip again to pull Liam back.  He hovers his chin over Liam’s shoulder, thumbing the head of his cock and squeezing the shaft until Liam trembles, spills sticky and thick over Zayn’s knuckles.

“Look at you,” Zayn groans, thick come webbing around his fingers.  “So good for me, man.”

Liam gnaws out a sound, a grunt, rotating his hips for more friction, even if he’s fucking _trembling_.

“Oh fuck Zayn,” he gasps, still shivering and oversensitive with fingers tangled in Zayn’s hair, “come on me.”

And Zayn does.  He lets the head catch on Liam’s hole, strokes himself off in this slow, _maddeningly slow_ way that has Liam hard between his fingers again and he tenses up with a strangled moan shoved to the nape of Liam’s neck when he comes across the small of his back.

He shivers and blinks _hard_ until all of those little black spots are removed from his vision and watches his come slide down Liam’s arse in this fascinating flood like a river.

They kiss slow and tender afterwards with Zayn wiping them clean and Liam edging them back into their clothes and the music still heavy in their ears – just a constant _‘we’re just taking turns to speak and nothing’s clear’_ that he won’t remember later.

“You good, dude?” he asks, his voice raspy and shot from straining to keep quiet.

There’s a shy nod, lips under his jaw.  “That was really,” Liam pauses, nosing his way to Zayn’s lips.  His eyes are still dark, vulnerable and hungry.  “It was different?”

Zayn laughs into a kiss, nose scrunching.

“S’that your way of saying it was bad?”

“No, no,” Liam says quickly, nervously chewing at his lip.  “S’not like that.  It was good – fuck, it was great, babe.  I just never pictured myself being so into – “

Zayn nods, kisses him quiet because everything else feels unnecessary.

Like an empty void.  Like a nothing.

Liam stares at all of the ink around his collarbones and Zayn smiles into his neck when Liam’s strong, determined fingers grip his waist to drag him closer –

And they stay like that, pressed together and unsure, until Zayn laughs and Liam’s eyes crinkle.  He tangles their clean fingers together and Zayn lets Liam drag him out of the room towards the kitchen with something awfully pink outlining his cheeks.

They stumble inside with flushed skin and Harry looks up with a wide, wide smirk and a tray of burnt cookies and uncooked ones on the counters.

“Are we done watching _Wild Kingdom_?” he asks, wriggling his eyebrows at them with a perfectly pronounced dimple carved into his cheek, “I’m quite fond of the documentary on the mating habits of prairie dogs.”

Liam blushes hard while Zayn flips him off and Annabelle looks confused, still a snow princess with flour and batter sprinkled into her hair.

“Uncle Haz,” she whines, “what’s that?”

“Nothing Anna – “

“Belle,” she and Harry sigh together and Zayn presses into Liam’s side, an arm curled around his spine, their fingers still twisted.

“Never took you for the noisy one, Payno,” Harry continues to tease, dusting off his hands and fishing his keys from the mess near the sink.  He shrugs, props a hip to the counter while Liam shifts restlessly next to Zayn, looking nervous and embarrassed and incredibly happy.

“Now Malik,” he grins and those stupid curls are swiped back with a large hand to expose more of his grin, “I figured you’d be uncontrollable.  All of your dirty talk and I figured you to be a rock star in the bed – “

“Shut it, Haz,” Liam groans, nudging further into Zayn’s side to hide his blush but Zayn grins anyway.

“You’ll never know,” he comments, soothing kisses to Liam’s temple until they’re both radiating this intolerable affection that scares Zayn –

But he doesn’t run from it like instinct instructs him to.

“Doubt it,” Harry laughs and Jackson looks up from his comic with a wrinkled brow, parted lips but he doesn’t speak.  “But I’m sure Ni has some good stories about you.  I’ve gotta ditch to meet him at the boardwalk.”

“But the mess – “

“Have fun,” Harry swoons, pressing a messy kiss to Liam’s cheek while ruffling Zayn’s already wrecked hair and he shoves out the back door before Liam can scowl at him.

They blink at each other for a long moment and Zayn waits for Liam to softly smile, like he’s shy and nervous, before he turns to Annabelle and Jackson.

“Well I suppose we should try do this proper, okay?” he offers, trashing the overdone cookies and pulling a fresh bowl from the cupboards.  He hip-checks Liam and carefully hauls Annabelle up on one of the counters to brush the flour from her forehead.  “Favorite kind?”

“Chocolate chip!” she squeals with that effervescent giggle he can’t get over.

“Sugar,” Jackson says gently, tugging at his jeans with an uneven grin.

Zayn grins, tugs him up next to Annabelle and Liam crowds his back, chest to spine, with a dumb smile smashed to his mouth.

“You’re in trouble now, y’know?” he asks, nudging his nose along Zayn’s neck and Zayn can’t escape the heat that flushes his skin.

He simply nods and lets Liam help him with the dough and this little hurricane of a kitchen turns into a tsunami with their laughter echoing off the walls.

 

/+/

 

And his smile refuses to leave his lips late into the afternoon when he pulls up at Grovestown for his shift.  Not with flour dusted in his hair like early snow and small fingertip shapes on his hip from Liam’s hands and dough smudged along his jeans and bright colors along his tattoos from Annabelle’s markers and the scent of grape surf wax stuck to his skin.

Not when he glances at his phone, at the selfie of the four of them shoved together with smeared chocolate on their lips and he can still taste Liam’s sugary kisses under his tongue.

But all he can hear is _London, London, London_ in his ears for hours afterwards.

 

/+/

 

The world is a haze of deep indigos, sharp violet bleeding the stars out of the hidden catacombs while the street lamps rage fuzzy whites across the roads.

All he sees is a cloud of smoke from his cigarette.

The temperature is a little cooler now, just that hint of frost from a long gone sun and a pitch black sky.  He sits on the front steps of that shambled structure of wood he calls _home_ with his forearms on his knees, ripped skinny jeans and vintage tank a blur of nothingness in his mind.  His flat hair falls in his eyes, his beanie too far back on his head to cover it, his bare skin scaling with goosebumps even with sweet smoke heating his lungs.

He’s been staring at nothing for an hour, cigarette after cigarette while he avoids texts from Louis about grabbing beers with Niall down by the boardwalk and little messages from Liam mainly composed of stupid emojis and short script like _‘movie night w/ jacks and belle’_ and _‘beach this wkend? teach you to swm’_ that he struggles to ignore.

Just his smoke and creaking steps under him and the sky almost bleached of color, just shadows.

That familiar hum of his father’s old Mercedes – the knock of the engine, the rattling transmission when the gears are shifted, the soft squeal of the brakes when it pulls up the drive – drags through his ears and he carelessly flicks the ash from the end of his cigarette, watching it catch flight like snow.  He burns down another huff, clouding his mouth with hot smoke and exhales while Yaser jiggles the keys in his hand, a briefcase in his spare one.

Yaser smiles down at him, all of his aging features hidden in the shadows, shoots him a look like when Zayn was so much younger, clinging to a Buzz Lightyear and singing _‘hey pretty lady with the high heels on’_ all the way down the hall.

He drops the suitcase at the bottom step, the old wood howling when he sits down next to Zayn and steals his cigarette.  He ditches it in old, scrubby bushes and eases a heavy arm around Zayn’s too tense shoulders.

Zayn swallows the mewl caught in his throat but presses into Yaser’s touch until his skin prickles with affection, their knees knocking and all of the crickets singing a chorus of _‘the way you make me feel’_ in the background.

“Not yourself lately, my sweet _beta_ ,” Yaser comments with a thick wind ripping in the distance and all of the squares from the lamp posts shining off his dark hair.  He squeezes a little tighter, nudging Zayn’s temple with his chin until Zayn looks up.  “You should be inside fighting with your sisters or drawing.”

Zayn sniffs, drops his chin and lets the last of his smoke trace up through his veins.

He shrugs, carefully biting his lip while Yaser hums quietly.  “I don’t know, baba.  I’m just – s’cool.  M’fine,” he says but the wobble in his voice gives him away and Yaser huffs a disapproving noise.

“No need to lie,” Yaser admonishes with a smile and not a hint of disappointment in his voice.  “I’m not your ammi.  I’m not forcing you to talk about it.”

But Zayn knows better.  That slight lift of Yaser’s eyebrow, the way his mouth quirks and his jaw sets a sharp line and Zayn’s never been good at disguising things from them.  Any of them.

He picks at a scar on his knuckle – from his last argument with Doniya – and sighs into the humid atmosphere.

“What if,” he holds his breath, expands his lungs until they threaten to burst, “Would you be disappointed if I didn’t want to go to university in London?  I mean, like, I’d still go to art school, just not there.”

He blinks up at Yaser, all of the pale light and soft shadows carving out the thoughtful expression on his face.  He doesn’t frown or scowl but he holds something cautious in his expression before he smiles and threads fingers under Zayn’s beanie to touch his hair.

“Not at all,” he promises in this deep, loving voice that swells through Zayn’s arteries.  “What did you have in mind?”

Zayn clears his throat, all of the muscles burnt by smoke and strained by fear and he feels Yaser’s free hand curl around his shaky one until the trembles stop.

“What if I wanted to stick around here?” he asks, glancing up through his eyelashes –

He’s never been vulnerable for anyone but Yaser and he feels weak, unsure even with that huge grin on Yaser’s lips, the bright eyes that are surrounded by wrinkles and age.

Yaser laughs but it’s not mocking or condescending.  It’s like the first strum of an acoustic guitar – out of tune but perfect.

“Your sisters would be right chuffed about it,” Yaser says, heaving Zayn closer until his shoulder is pressed to the warm ache of Yaser’s chest.  “Secretly, your mum too.”

Zayn smiles into the collar of his father’s shirt – sniffing at the same cologne he’s worn for most of Zayn’s life, that same over-starched material, that hint of a spicy lunch Doniya probably packed for him because his mum is still too weak – and shuts his eyes at the sound of Yaser’s eased breathing.

“But why are you choosing here, now?  You didn’t get a bird pregnant, did you?” Yaser teases when he draws back, mussing Zayn’s hair and trying to look stern but it’s not effective.  “Do we need to have _the talk_ , beta?”

Zayn blinks away, grinning.  Ant and Danny were rather graphic with that discussion years ago and he’s certain Yaser has found some of his low quality porn throughout his bedroom when he was younger, never saying a word but shooting him a proud look across the kitchen table in the morning when Zayn stumbled in rumpled and flushed and sweaty with the scent of boyish musk like after a tentative wank.

“No, baba,” he groans, giggling.  “But like, what if I did?  Want to stay?  Maybe raise kids here?”

Yaser shrugs, leans back to soak in the thick sky and the chirping crickets.  The draft is dense with sea salt and summer trees and that ivy crawling over the house.

“Think it’d be quite brilliant, if you ask me,” Yaser admits with a long breath, the exhaustion showing through his bones.  “Your mum, though she won’t tell Doniya, is dying for grandchildren.  And you know I – “

“And what if I _fell for a boy_?” Zayn says in a rush, the words colliding, his breaths coming sharp, his heart stomping against his chest.

He’s chewing his bottom lip raw, squeezing at Yaser’s hand and waiting for a reaction.  He’s waiting for it all to come tumbling down – the smile and the laughable eyebrows and the sweet voice – and there’s a beat of too much silence but –

Yaser raises his eyebrows and looks down.  There’s something like disappointment in the twitch of his lips but it fades so quickly like it was never meant to be there – just some mirage.

He turns and tugs half of Zayn into his chest and Zayn folds under the pressure of Yaser’s smile on his forehead.

“You love who you love, _mere laal_.  I’ve never thought differently of you,” Yaser whispers into his beanie and Zayn grins around the starched collar, remembers the sound of his mother’s voice when she called him that, “Even if you never wanted the world to know.”

The tight knot in his chest, the one suffocating the oxygen and chilling his blood, loosens and he feels Yaser’s hand on his spine, rubbing soft circles to ease the tense tendons.  He swears he goes numb in the silence, in the beat of Yaser’s heart in his eardrums, in the dark of the night.

“Be anything you want.  Just _be happy_ in life, my sweet beta,” Yaser adds and knocks Zayn’s head back with a shoulder and a laugh.  He takes his time standing, all of his strength reserved in tired muscles and dusts his slacks off before tugging away Zayn’s beanie to fix his hair.

“I’m going to check on your ammi,” he adds, over his shoulder with a stretched smile.  “Zayn?”

He looks up, bottom lip tucked behind teeth, his cells raging with release.

“If you’ve fallen for him, you shouldn’t just walk away,” Yaser says with a serious face, “but if you have a destination in mind, don’t change course unless you’re certain.  In this life, we get many chances but we don’t get many things we love.”

The old door creaks open and Waliyha and Safaa flood Yaser in the doorway while Zayn itches for another cigarette –

No, just to _breathe_ because – _fuck_ – he’s struggling to reteach his lungs the direction that the air flows.

 

/+/

 

The city is a nest of fireflies too far out for him to see from here but he imagines the view while stocking boxes of cereal just before midnight on a Thursday.

He thinks of greyish smog and tall buildings kissing the edge of a dark sky and the red brake lights of cars lining the streets like Christmas glow.  Food trucks and greasy burritos and fish tacos and electricity between the avenues and he doesn’t long for any of it –

But something under the tips of his fingers aches for a paint brush and a blank canvas and the glow of neon signs providing the proper lighting.

He frowns with his stupid apron on, the cheap linoleum burning a harsh white from the fluorescent lighting and his gravity shifts when someone crashes into his thighs while he lines up all of the boxes of Special K.

Zayn glances downward while tiny fingers tug on his apron and – _holy fuck_ – he can’t stop the way his lips twitch into a smile at the sight of Jackson grinning up at him.

“Zee,” he breathes out, soft and thrilled like he always is, swaying to the white noise of music overhead and Zayn hears _‘she’s a good girl, who’s crazy ‘bout Elvis, loves horses and her boyfriend too’_ just before Liam comes into his line of sight.

“Hey,” Liam says, warm and fond with Annabelle sleep in his arms, and their lips are synchronized when they smile at each other.  “I love this song.”

Zayn snorts, drags slow fingers through Jackson’s hair and the gap between them feels like miles –

Like California to London and he swears he doesn’t mean to think about that but –

“S’nice,” Zayn replies, says instead of _‘I’ve missed you’_ because that sounds so hysterically awful in his mind that he winces.

Liam laughs, bright and breathy, with dark scrubs and a carton of milk trapped in his free hand.

“Sorry, this squirt was craving cookies,” Liam says, motioning to the softly snoring Annabelle, grinning down at Jackson, “and this one wanted to stay up and watch _Batman Forever_ with me.  We needed milk at the house and – “

Liam’s words trail off like he’s said too much with an embarrassed smile and _‘I’m a bad boy ‘cause I don’t even miss her’_ in their ears and it’s so fucking _ironic_ that Zayn looks away.

“Didn’t get to cook dinner ‘cause I got off late,” Liam adds because they’re still trading glances at each other like they want to touch, shift closer.

“Cookies for dinner?” Zayn smiles, arching a high eyebrow when Liam blushes.  “S’not good for you.”

Liam’s head jerks up and his usually dumb smile turns affectionate, shines the wonder in his auburn eyes and Zayn fucking melts.

He scratches gently at Jackson’s scalp to stop himself from tugging Liam closer, from kissing the stupid grin off his face and scowling _‘shut up you stupid fuck I do not fancy you this much’_ and Jackson brushes his laugh into Zayn’s jeans with a scrunched nose like _he knows_ –

Like their inability to be around each other without staring is showing for the fucking city to admire.

“You could,” Liam starts, licking his lips, dragging his eyes over Zayn’s loose shirt and the smeared red lips high on his chest, “join us, maybe?  Belle is out for the night but Jacks would probably – “

“Can’t,” Zayn says immediately and it sounds harsh, a rough rejection that he quickly tries to correct by adding, “I mean – I just started my shift.  Working overnight.”

Liam nods without a distinguishable frown on his lips but there’s disappointment in the corners of his eyes that Zayn can’t escape.  His hand trembles for a touch and he almost, almost does but –

Doniya clears her throat loudly from the other end of the aisle, eyeing Zayn warily before trading off to stare at Jackson, then Liam, then Annabelle.  She shoots him a skeptical glare that he groans at, shifts closer to Jackson but further from Liam.

“Hey,” she says when she approaches, apron tossed over her shoulder and hair knotted up in a ponytail.

Liam swallows, blushes under her stare and Zayn thinks of shielding them, making them disappear but he doesn’t.

“Doni,” he sighs, the echo of _‘now I’m free, free fallin’_ cascading in the background, “this is – “

“Liam, I’m a friend,” Liam quickly interjects like he’s sparing Zayn, like neither of them want a name or a title or a definition to this –

This nothing between them.

Doniya hums, nodding.  “Zayn doesn’t have any friends,” she clarifies, crossing her arms and smiling weakly, “Except for those idiots Ni and Lou but they’re more like family now.”

Liam bites his lip and Zayn slouches against a shelf, still swimming fingers through Jackson’s hair until he’s calm against Zayn’s thigh.

“Yeah, well,” Liam clears his throat, looks down before smiling, “I suppose if he hasn’t mentioned me then – “

Zayn feels a tight whine in his throat, an _‘I haven’t mentioned you because you’re too important to share with the world just yet’_ but it tastes bitter over his tongue.  It feels like an excuse and Liam deserves much more than that.

“He has,” Doniya grins, blinking the fringe out of her eyes, “Not by name, but he’s mentioned you quite a bit.”

The stain of pink on Liam’s cheeks looks almost white under the pale lighting as he adjusts Annabelle in his arms and waves Jackson over.  He scuffs the toe of his shoe on the floor, the squeak discernibly lower than the thud of Zayn’s heart when Liam smiles and nods.

“Right,” he whispers under his breath, still not looking fully at Doniya but refusing to glance at Zayn as he nudges Jackson down the aisle.  “It’s getting late and I should get these two home.”

Zayn pushes into the sharp metal of the shelf and wrinkles his nose when Liam leads Jackson down the aisle, just a quick glance over his shoulder, a quiet _‘see you Zayn’_ that’s muted under _‘I wanna free fall out into nothing’_ and everything is too loud when he can’t find Liam in his sight anymore.

He turns to Doniya with a scowl, frowning at the way she doesn’t give him any other look besides pity.  He drags the heel of his hand down his face to scrub away the frustration while his auxiliary hand still stings, tingles around his palm from where it was pressed to the short hairs on the side of Jackson’s head.

“Doni,” he breathes when her mouth twitches but she shakes her head instantly.

“What are you going to do?  Play _baba_ to those beautiful children?” she scolds in a low voice like she doesn’t want anyone else to hear, even though the store is empty and Zayn knows this dead city could care less about him.

Still, he tightens his jaw and lifts his chin until the harsh lighting blinds him.

“You have a family of your own to take care of, Zee.  Your own responsibilities to deal with,” she adds with a huff and a sigh and, just a little quieter, “You’ve got two little sisters back home.”

“I know,” he groans and it feels like when they were younger, Doniya always the responsible one with dreams while Zayn wanted nothing more than to be a Power Ranger or left alone in his room.

His teeth work his bottom lip until the metallic taste of copper slides over his tongue and he sucks in a sharp breath while she blinks at him.

“I don’t know what to do,” he admits, the slide of his voice easing the tension trapped in her shoulders, “And I know I have to back off.”

There’s a long silence before all of her features relax, before she drops her eyes away and _guilty_ , that’s what it is, it’s in her face when she looks at him again.

“I want you happy, Zee,” she swears and there’s not a hint of dishonesty in her throat, “but is that the family you want?”

Zayn doesn’t answer – no, he _can’t_ – and it leaves him tongue numb and this awful feeling deep in his stomach.

“I need to get home to mum,” she whispers, squeezing at his shoulder like an apology before turning away.

She’s halfway down the aisle and he’s an inch closer to breathing normally when she says, “One thing is for sure – he’s falling in love with you.  Those kids too.”

Zayn doesn’t have the heart – or the strength – to confess that he knows or how much he wishes he wasn’t too.

 

/+/

 

He’s never felt like this before –

Well, that’s not completely true.  With Louis, he remembers sneaking into their high school to pull pranks and stealing cigarettes from the drug store and raiding Louis’ step-dad’s beer stash to sit up on the roof while blowing shotguns and getting dizzy drunk before Zayn was eighteen

– but here, with Liam, it’s different.

They’re nudging into his house at half-past two and Zayn has to throw a hand over Liam’s mouth to stifle his giggles in the dark, all of the walls echoing the quiet of the night and they’re drunk without the liquor and happy without the words when Zayn tosses Liam over one shoulder and carries him down the old, creaky steps into the basement.

“This is hardly romantic,” Liam snickers but doesn’t fight from the hold Zayn has on him.

“Shut it,” Zayn grins until they’re at the bottom, swatting at Liam’s ass when he finally lowers him to the ground.  “You liked it.”

Liam smile is far from cheap or unappreciative and he doesn’t respond, not with words but his fingers brush a _‘yes’_ to Zayn’s hip instead.

Their shoulders knock in the dark and the moon shines silver hexagons in patterns across the floor and Liam looks around with this beautiful fascination that Zayn wants to etch against the wall.

“ _Wow_ ,” he breathes, smiling, staring at all of the artwork along the walls, at the piles of sketchbooks, at all of Zayn’s unfinished pieces that he’s embarrassed by, and the spray painted Batman on the brick opposite Zayn’s bed.

His calloused fingers catch on the colored pencil drawings Zayn’s been working on with his bottom lip caught between his teeth, the smooth shadows giving a fuzzy outline to his wide shoulders and slim torso.  The specks of moonlight shine across his face and his hand cups the nape of his neck when he looks up again.

“It’s – well, you are,” Liam pauses, hums out something Zayn doesn’t recognize and the pink in his cheeks isn’t clear in this moment before he adds, “ _incredible_.”

Zayn blushes, punches playfully at Liam’s shoulder before dragging him in by an elbow just nuzzle his nose over Liam’s exposed collarbone – he’s wearing this thin t-shirt that refuses to hide all of his muscles, the soft of his tummy, the tan skin beneath – to smell coconut sunscreen and wax and peppermint gum.

Liam nudges back with a paper crumpled in his hand and a soft grin against Zayn’s temple.

“Is this,” he swallows, fingers running gentle circles along the small of Zayn’s back, “that’s Jacks, right?”

Zayn tenses and centers himself against Liam’s warmth before nodding.  “When I first met him, I sort of couldn’t get him out of my head.  He was in a – “

“A dark place,” Liam whispers with a quiet smile, “that’s why you sketched the shadows around his head and the way he bites his lip when he’s frightened – “

“Nervous,” Zayn corrects because Jackson is nothing but _brave_.  He’s strong and resilient and so much like Zayn remembers himself being at that age.

Liam nods, presses against Zayn’s spine until he lifts his head and then twists their bodies until the moon shines over Zayn’s face rather than Liam’s and –

Yes, right, _wow_.

They stand like that, trying not to grin and trying not to stare before Liam talks in this soft, soft tone about his sisters and his dog back home and training to box as a teenager until Zayn figures he’ll never tire at the sound of Liam’s voice –

Or the curve of his smile or the crinkles by his eyes or the way his nose scrunches when he’s really, really happy.

Fingers catch in his hair, Liam spinning them until the back of Zayn’s knees meet the mattress and all he sees is a kaleidoscope of colors from his artwork before they tumble in the dark.

Their laughter is muffled and muted by their kisses, a filthy slide to their lips that matches the rhythm of their hips on this lumpy mattress.  They kick off their shoes and Liam, clumsy and out of practice, slides them out of their shirts while Zayn works at their jeans.  He presses a stupid smile to Liam’s bare shoulder, biting gently when Liam applies friction with a slow grind, and whines a moan to Liam’s skin when there’s not enough space between them to watch all of Liam’s muscles react.

The dusty glow of the moon traces patterns to the walls, their shadows chasing all of their movements like grey splashed on a canvas.  He tastes sugary root beer along Liam’s bottom lip, strains all of his limbs to wrap around him when Liam tugs softly at his hair.  It’s a mumbled sound at the back of his throat that turns to a whine and trembles into a whimper and he wants nothing more than to tear away that barrier of denim separating them.

Liam cheats – _the bastard_ – with deft fingers and grins into the hollow of Zayn’s neck when he splits their jeans, works them downward.  They kick out of them and Zayn reaches for the lube, a condom that Liam sneaks from between his fingers for a quick kiss and a heavy laugh.

“Prepared?” he teases and Zayn doesn’t blush but his lips part for a tongue, for a quiet plead he regrets immediately –

Except the tide reaches high and Liam exposes the hint of pink along his cheeks like he’s shy and nervous and so much younger than he was minutes ago.

“Fuck,” Zayn groans, tugs him back down until they’re writhing against each other, cocks sliding and trapped between their hips, and Liam kisses back like he can’t quite subdue his appetite for more.

“I’ve thought about you and this,” Liam admits, the waves of sheets lapping at their bare ankles.

 _Chemicals and instinct_ , he thinks, the things that lead him to arch upward and spread his thighs for Liam’s slick fingers.  He chews on his bottom lip while Liam decorates his neck in invisible bruises and the first touch –

 _Oh_.

No, that’s too simple.  It’s more of a _yes_ and _unbelievable_ and three-quarters of a _finally_ that echoes in his chest.

“I’ve thought about a lot of things,” Liam adds in this voice meant to be seductive but it’s too sincere, affectionate.  “Like licking you out first.  Getting you all wet with just my tongue, babe.  Watching you spread your legs like you can’t help yourself.”

Zayn’s gasp is pressed into Liam’s shoulder, the tremble down his spine arching his back for the right angle.

“What else?”

“Fucking you open with my fingers, with my mouth,” Liam grunts with a soft sheen of sweat glossing his brow.  “Just to see how – fuck, thought about how tight you’d be.”

He scratches dull nails along Liam’s scalp when his first finger nudges in.  Zayn’s unprepared for the way he twists to pull Liam further in, nosing along Liam’s throat and gasping hot breath to warm skin when Liam adds more pressure.

“But,” Liam groans, sinking deeper with his finger, “I can’t wait that long because – _fuck_ , you look good like this.”

They’re clumsy, moving in the wrong directions and the angle isn’t sweet enough but Liam gentles a hand to Zayn’s thigh and settles him until he’s spread and willing.  He ducks his head to mouth delicate kisses to Zayn’s parted lips and the world swirls like the foam of a surf when Liam slips a second finger in.

“That’s it,” Liam whispers against his mouth, smiling.  “You’re opening up so good for me.”

Liam laughs against Zayn’s lips when he strangles out a noise and balances on an elbow to watch Zayn gradually fall apart on his fingers.

 _Incredible_ , he thinks.  He chants it in his head rather than in Liam’s ear and tangles his spare hand in the sheets when Liam nudges against his prostate.  He curls a leg around Liam’s strong waist and traces all of his muscles with skimming fingers until he finds Liam’s heavy cock between them, measuring the firmness in his palm.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Liam huffs with a smile, eyes bunching up when Zayn strokes off the head, fingers coated in precome.  He hisses along Zayn’s jaw, lathers his cheek with kisses and moist breath that heats Zayn’s core –

Toes curl into the sheets and Zayn tries to fix his hips to the mattress but he can’t help the way he involuntarily grinds back onto Liam’s fingers until he drags them along that soft spot that aches all through Zayn’s nerves.

Zayn’s high whimpers, the one he keeps strangling with his throat muscles until he swears he won’t be able to speak properly for a week from the damage, keep spurring Liam into these ruthless taunts with his fingers.  Just smooth twists and crooked flexing and _oh fuck right there you have no idea_ until Zayn’s slick with sweat and lube drips down his arse.

His fingers drag over the sheets, that overwhelming feeling of being full and so open but broken sinks into his blood and he loses himself in that happy shine to Liam’s eyes.

 _Accomplished_ , he thinks, even though Liam’s far from smug or incredulous when he stares down at Zayn.

“You okay?” Liam asks, licking out pretty phrases to Zayn’s neck.

Zayn huffs a rough laugh, nods, tilts his hips and works himself further onto Liam’s fingers until they press just a little further.

Usually, he wants more – a few more minutes of slick fingers, maybe a third, a long blowjob and sweet kisses down the cleft of his arse – but he can’t with Liam.  He’s not prepared for the onslaught of need accompanying the want and he pinches fingers to the nape of Liam’s neck to drag him down for a kiss while strategically wrapping his legs around Liam’s back, ankles locking at the small dip in his spine.

“Now would be good,” he encourages with soft eyes and a vulnerable jaw and something heavy in his chest that he hopes Liam doesn’t recognize –

 _Yes_.

Liam smiles tenderly, nods with their foreheads pressed together and his sheathed cock – _sneaky bastard_ – nudges at the rim until Zayn whines before –

 _Yes, yes, yes_.

“Gonna fuck you, babe,” Liam growls, fingers pinching at his waist and Zayn hopes for marks.

He hopes for a reason to glare at himself in the morning and maybe a reminder of how this feels and maybe just a little more.

“But like I’ve never,” Liam waves a hand between them but his hips betray him with a sharp flex, nudging the slick head against Zayn’s fluttering hole, “you know, like with a dude, I guess?  I mean, not that I haven’t thought about it.  Especially with you.”

“Yeah,” Zayn breathes, gripping his cock in the middle to subside the way it aches and he wants nothing more than for Liam to ditch this shy routine and – “C’mon, dude, tell me.”

“Fucking you,” Liam blurts out, right under Zayn’s jaw, hands palming his hips with round cheeks smeared pink.  “Being inside you.  And, fuck, babe it keeps crossing my mind.  How good you’re gonna feel.”

He shivers, strains and fights to relax when Liam slides in.  It’s gentle – _like he knew Liam would be_ – but intense – _like this should be_ – until his fingers are biting into Liam’s skin and he barely notices the kisses under his jaw until the pain subsides.

“Fuck,” slides past his lips and it’s all he can think to say.  It’s all his throat can muster with Liam’s eyes, his brow, the flex of his lips so intense.

He can’t tell if he’s floating or sinking but Liam’s got one hand under his spine and the other pressing at his shoulder until Zayn is somewhere in between.  Their hips are pressed together and Liam’s nudged deep, all of Zayn’s muscles squeezing around the thick shaft and his lungs caught afire without the oxygen to calm them.  He licks his lips, lets out a shaky breath, and almost loses it when Liam grins with crinkled eyes before kissing the inside of his knee, exhaling softly towards the first thrust.

“Oh, wow, man,” Liam breathes with the crown of his dick wedging him wider and he keeps going even though there’s hesitation in his eyes, an inadequate nervousness catching on his lips.

In the dark, their eyes meet and Liam’s are blown wide.  He knows this part, explicitly, the part where he teaches Liam all of the things he forgot and grinds back but Liam’s so strong, pinning him to the bed and rocking slowly in him.  He’s taking his time – _fucking arsehole_ – and brushing fingers under Zayn’s chin until he stops watching the way his own cock twitches on his stomach and looks at Liam.

His dumb smile is somehow dirty in the shadows, mischievous in ways he’s practiced with Louis, and they can’t find a preferred rhythm to how they move but Zayn likes that –

 _Loves it_ , really.  He moans softly and succumbs to the waves while Liam shines like an early sun.

“Doing so good,” Zayn says encouragingly, scratching dull nails up Liam’s forearm, sliding towards the chevrons.  “You can – y’know, you can keep going.”

They build a pace with quiet, quiet groans.  Liam with his filthy smile, Zayn with his dark eyes, their sweat making the slide so much more exquisite.  And there’s a pressure on his chest, not from Liam’s hand, and a burn in his stomach from the way Liam keeps fucking down on his prostate that makes him want to scream –

Instead, he kisses Liam.  He whimpers things like _‘stay right there’_ and _‘how are you so fucking amazing at this’_ and _‘don’t stop but please I need you to just c’mon babe’_ over a pink tongue and Liam presses in deep without the hesitance Zayn’s expecting.

“Zayn,” Liam breathes rather than grunts, the tension in his shoulders visible, the way he’s straining to hold on for a few minutes longer but –

He sneaks a hand between them, curls fingers high on Zayn’s cock and he’s arching his spine immediately to get closer.  He’s encouraging Liam with his eyes rather than his mouth and Liam collects all of the precome on his lube-sticky fingers to create this slippery noise that Zayn wants in his head forever.

“If you,” Zayn stutters, eyes fluttering shut when Liam’s hand twists around the shaft, “a little faster is cool.”

Liam exhales a breathy laugh against his ear, something smug and arrogant, but gentles his hips to a steady rhythm that keeps striking deep in Zayn.  It keeps shoving against those sensitive nerves.

“Come on, babe,” Zayn begs because he’s on the verge of combusting and Liam fucking nibbles at his collarbone like Zayn needs him to be tender when he needs something rough and memorable.  “Come for me, babe.  Inside of me.  Fuck me and come so deep – “

“You’re so tight,” Liam counters and their breaths are knocked out of syncopation when Liam’s hips snap harder, the smack loud and familiar.  “So fucking tight and Christ you look _beautiful_ – “

“Shut up,” Zayn laughs but bites firmly on his bottom lip when Liam hikes his hips up to pound deeper.  “You don’t have to – “

“I don’t care,” Liam grunts with a knit brow, squinted eyes and he looks serious.  He looks overcome and Zayn relinquishes all control.  “I like watching you.  I like the way you’re so into this, man.  The way you look like you’re gonna come from just my dick, Zayn, it’s incredible.”

Zayn bites firmer on his lip, almost pulling blood from the tension, struggling to find enough oxygen.

“You’re incredible,” Liam adds, softer, a warmth in his voice that’s such a contrast to the noisy echo of their breathing, the slick sounds of Liam slamming deeper, the smack of flesh and squelch of too much lube and –

He submits and Liam leaves a mark low on Zayn’s neck with his teeth and Zayn is helpless when he comes between Liam’s fingers, squirting high along his abdomen.

There’s an _‘I’m gonna oh fuck Liam you’re making me – ‘_ somewhere on his tongue that he never releases but his body feels it and Liam doesn’t stop tugging him off when he’s too sensitive to handle anymore.

Liam’s in his ear – _‘so fucking tight,’ ‘so hot watching you come like this,’ ‘is it my cock or my mouth that gets you off, babe?’_ – and the sweat along his throat cools when Liam breathes along it, heaves husky gasps until Zayn tightens his legs around Liam’s hips and a whispered _‘yes daddy’_ sends Liam deep and over the edge.

It takes Liam minutes – maybe hours – before he slides out and the seconds before are accompanied by sweet kisses, laughable smiles, fingers streaking in the sweat across their skin.  Liam drowns in the sheets when he rolls onto his back, so fucking ecstatic before he tugs off the condom and ties a knot into it, still too lazy to do anything but stare at Zayn in the fuzzy glow of the moon.  Zayn absently rolls closer, tangling their legs and biting a _‘fuck off’_ to Liam’s shoulder because he keeps looking at Zayn like –

Like Zayn is _everything_ and he’s never been that, not to anyone.

His fingers drag over Liam’s damp scalp, curled around each other and refusing to move, and Liam’s kisses taste so rich when they’re like this.  When they’re lazy and smiling and tracing lines into each other’s skin.

And he hates himself because this was definitely _something_ instead of a _nothing_ even if they both say _‘doesn’t have to mean anything, right?’_ to each other between their deep breaths.

 

/+/

 

He sneaks Liam to the front door and they’re goofy, kissing teenagers in the archway with the flood of street lamps blanketing the streets white and their fingers tangled.

Liam’s stolen one of his old hoodies that doesn’t fit loose around the shoulders like it does on Zayn but it smells just like him and he thinks that’s incredibly fitting since his sheets and pillows are stained with Liam’s scent now.

And he can’t seem to forget that or rid himself of that smile for hours afterwards, not even with _London_ in the back of his mind.

 

/+/

 

It’s the middle of August and the stains of heat from the city seep in through the little cracks in this airy bungalow.

The living room is washed blue and dull whites from the television and Jackson’s already asleep in his lap, sprawled out with limbs everywhere and soft snoring and tiny fingers twisted into the material of Zayn’s flannel.  His mouth is a cherry-red from store-bought cheesecake and, even in the dimmed light, everything about his face is soft.

Annabelle’s beside Zayn, standing between the divide of cushions with her fingers in his hair and her chin on his shoulder.  She’s grinning a bit vulnerably and he keeps cocking his head every few minutes to admire her, the way she’s silent but curious with her amber eyes.

“Do you have a mommy and daddy?” she asks with wide, bright eyes and she doesn’t let him answer before she continues, “A bunch of kids in my, um, class do.  Lots of moms and dads.  Some of ‘em got, like, two dads.  Two moms too!”

Zayn nods, biting a corner of his lip.  He wriggles his eyebrows at her and stretches an arm around her small back to keep her steady on the cushions.  She pets along his stubble, the structure of his cheek until he’s ready to talk.

“I have a mum and a _baba_ , yes,” he replies softly, the dull buzz of _Wreck It Ralph_ in the background and she giggles over his shoulder with long, feathery eyelashes when she looks down.

“What’s a baba?” she wonders, twisting her head and blinking.

Zayn blushes and wrinkles his nose.  He remembers teaching Safaa and Waliyha how to speak Urdu for the first time, listening to his mum explain all of the different meanings in this slow, careful drawl from their kitchen in Bradford.  He can still hear all of his cousins speaking it so fluently while he struggled with some of the basic words but Doniya – she was always so patient, helping with his diction and reminding him of proper pronouns.

“Baba means father,” he explains, tickling fingers up her spine and loving the stiff texture of her sundress against his palm, “Or _abbu_ , too.  It’s what I call my dad.”

She nods along, humming sweetly, teetering on the cushions and almost slipping off.

“I only have my Papa,” she whispers like she’s unsure, like she doesn’t quite understand why it’s all she has.  “And you.  You’re my _baba_.”

It’s shy and gentle and so fucking affectionate and Zayn freezes instantly.  His fingers sill and his breath stops short and he blinks at her while she outlines all of the checkered plaid along his shirt without looking up.

“Belle, I’m not – “

“My baba,” she repeats, grinning.  She continues to hum, sighing gently before curling her small arms around his neck.  “My papa and my baba.”

He squeezes back, instinctively, and somewhere in his sleep, Jackson mumbles, “Baba.”

Something awful, toxic stirs in his blood and his fingers stutter on her spine, stiffen in Jackson’s hair before he remembers to breathe.  He feels out of his mind, delirious, but somehow still _right here_ –

Still right where he wants to be.

He swallows back the bile, wrinkles his brow and dulls everything inside of him on the soft humming Annabelle presses to the shell of his ear.  Bravery escapes him, along with the need to tuck away his emotions because he pats along her back and wishes Doniya wasn’t so right about this.

He wishes _‘he’s falling in love with you’_ and _‘those kids too’_ didn’t echo so loudly in his head because he’s already submitted his application to London and started looking at flats near the city and he’s overheard Harry talking to Niall about Liam making plans to fly out to England with the kids, to start up school somewhere in north California, Texas even.

And he can already see the gap that separates them when he looks up and sees Liam standing in the doorway, frowning.  He can feel that cold rush of blood that surges through his veins, the way his hands long to touch along Liam’s jaw and his lips ache to kiss away the doubt.

“Papa, um, says you’re going ‘way soon,” she mumbles into the fabric and that clutch around his heart tightens.  Something like a sniffle escapes her, everything going tense under her skin.  “Don’t go, Zee.”

He can’t swallow, not without drowning, so he presses his lips to her temple and stares at Liam until the tension breaks.  Until they both look sad and afraid and Zayn closes his eyes immediately because –

 _Fuck you_.

He nods for Annabelle, kisses the top of her head and blindly thumbs over Jackson’s eyebrows just before his heart stills.

“Okay princess,” he promises even though he knows he can’t.

She twines her little fingers between the woven bracelets around his wrist and sighs acceptance like she’s mature enough to understand.  His heart breaks just that quickly, even as Jackson snuggles closer and the room goes dimmer with the closing credits on the screen.

He watches Liam scoot from the doorway, moving towards the kitchen and the drop of his head pricks at Zayn’s veins.  It fucking _hurts_ and he knows it.

Somewhere, he always knew it would.

“I love you,” he says to no one in particular but maybe it’s for Annabelle or Jackson –

But maybe it’s for _himself_ because he can’t find the courage to admit it to Liam.

 

/+/

 

When the kids are in bed and he’s standing in the doorway of the house rather than Liam’s bedroom, they kiss softly until neither one of them can bare to stay.  He thinks he feels something damp along Liam’s cheek and thinks he whimpers when Liam smiles and they kiss one last time except –

Liam frowns when they pull back because the kiss tastes like _goodbye_ rather than _see you soon_ but Liam refuses to comment.  He simply nods and Zayn squeezes his hand out of necessity rather than apology.

And when he gets home, he crawls into Doniya’s bed rather than his own and scrubs the angry tears from his cheeks while she curls around him to keep him calm.

To stop all of the trembling and the ache and the nothingness that’s supposed to filling this void rather than that boy with the wrinkled scrubs he knows he can’t stick around to fix.

 

/+/

 

It’s the edge of August and he feels like he’s in the middle of a blitzkrieg –

He hasn’t spoken to Liam in almost two weeks –

and nothing is numbing that _lightning strike_ feeling, not the nicotine or the music or the double shifts at Grovestown or the sticky hash, the beers he downs with Louis and Niall in the name of solidarity or summer madness

– but he tries not to think about that.

He helps Louis pack for his move up the northern shore and he stops off at the burger joint every other night just to watch Niall’s grin, the way his bright eyes light up every time he gets a new text from Harry – and Niall swears it’s _nothing_ but Zayn doesn’t know the definition of that word anymore.  He distracts himself with Waliyha and Safaa and almost – fuck it’s an _almost_ and a _so close_ – forgets the scent of Annabelle’s watermelon shampoo and the way Jackson’s fingers fit in his palm but –

Zayn stretches in the middle of the kitchen after a long nap with ruffled hair hidden under a beanie and a too big tank hanging off his skin, shredded jeans low on his hips.  His bare feet move across the cold tiles to prop a hip against the sink while Doniya hums old nursery rhymes and washes the dishes.

The sun is a fragmented prism, bright blonds and seaweed blues and chapstick pinks making the sky look fuzzy and beautiful from the small box of a kitchen window.  He blinks at her for a few seconds, the way her mouth is curved into a knowing smile like –

“Where’s mum?” he asks immediately because Doniya’s only ever this happy when she’s feeling better, stronger.

Doniya smirks, ducks her head a little and nods towards the backyard.

“She’s been out of bed for three hours now,” she says, wistful and other adjectives Zayn hasn’t associated with her since they were teenagers, “You’d know if you were being such a lazy arse – “

“Doni,” Safaa scolds from the kitchen table, waving an admonishing crayon at her and Zayn grins immediately at her bright lilac eyes.  “No foul words.”

“Hush it,” Doniya laughs, elbow-deep in sudsy water with her hair lazily pinned up.  “Dinner is still warm if you want some?”

Zayn cups the nape of his neck and flicks dishwater bubbles at her nose with a snicker before she hip-checks him towards the door.  They exchange something like a _‘thank you’_ with their eyes and they won’t ever explain why –

But they both know it’s a _‘thank you for surviving’_ and _‘thank you for reminding me what all is for’_ that they can’t say to each other for years to come.

The world fades off, a fireball dipping into a blue lagoon when he finds her sitting on an old stool in a floppy sunhat and floral-print dress.  Her delicate fingers, wrinkled from age and still small and shaky, brush over some of his artwork.  He can see the folds of her smile across her mouth.  Her shoulders perk up a little when he stumbles into her field of vision, eyes still lowered to look at some of his graffiti staining a large canvas.

“You’ve gotten better,” she whispers, her voice so new in his ears, against this humid air, “Your technique has improved, love.  It’s better than Doni’s.”

She half-turns, grinning but he can still see the exhaustion set to her bones.  “But don’t tell her I said that.”

He smirks back, teeth biting his bottom lip before he nods.

Her nose wrinkles a little and all of her features are still the same, just a little weaker.

“You’ve been smoking.”

Zayn flinches, hugs himself against the warm breeze that waves over them.  “No, it was – “

“Don’t lie to me,” Tricia sighs, turning back to the collection of paints and aerosol cans.  She toys with a few used paintbrushes, humming quietly.  “Come.  Come sit with me, sunshine.”

He doesn’t hesitate, twists all the way around for a spare lounge chair to drag over the concrete.  She smiles, all soft and open, while tracing the chaotic patterns in a few of his pieces until he finds her hand and grips it.

“You seem happy,” she mentions between their quiet and the twined fingers, “but troubled.”

Zayn absently looks away, chews his lip raw and taps bare feet along the cold ground.  He clears his throat to rid his voice of the anxiousness, of the smoke, of the numbness.

“There’s someone,” Zayn pauses, swallows the _‘he’s a nothing’_ because it’s a lie now, “Well, a _family_ – I’ve met someone brilliant with two absolutely cool children and I dunno what I’m doing anymore.  I mean, I’ve got London and school but, like, I think I’m in – “

The word sits like shattered glass on his tongue and he never says it.  But he squeezes her hand tighter like an _SOS_ , like Morse code until she nods and smirks.

“M’not sure about leaving,” he admits, lowly, his voice scrubbed raw.  He laughs but it feels foreign, unneeded when she sighs.  “I love my art but I don’t know anymore.”

Tricia’s smile tightens a little as she uses her spare hand to add strokes of color to one of his paintings.  It’s awkward, the lines, but it augments this certain sort of depth that she’s always brought to his life – unexpected but satisfying.

“All of your pieces are so lovely now, sunshine,” she comments, smearing paint along her fingers to drag smudges of green and idyllic blues and violent reds to another drawing.  “It’s because you’re happy.  Your baba is the same way.  When we were younger, all of his best sketches were around the time you and Doniya came along.  They were just – _brilliant_.”

Blush sticks to Zayn’s cheeks, sweat pools at his throat, and he watches her rather than all of the patterns she tags to his artwork.  He scoots closer at the sound of her laugh, the way it’s louder than it’s been in a fortnight, in months, in a year.

“Schooling doesn’t create that kind of inspiration, Zayn,” she swears, the brim of her hat hiding the wrinkles around her eyes when she grins.

“I don’t want to disappoint you or baba by abandoning uni like Doniya to – “

“To live your life for what you love?  Or for me?” Tricia interrupts with a grin.

He twists to look away but she arches an eyebrow and follows him with her eyes.

 _Guilty_ is what he feels with his lowered chin, toes wiggling against cold stone, shoulders pulling up like a bow string.

She tugs her hand from his to trace the line of his cheek and the sun dips further into the sea, the sky a lightning storm of oranges and pale purple.

“I know your sister didn’t go because of me,” she says.  He looks up through his eyelashes with a raw bottom lip pulsing into a frown she refuses to mirror.  “But you lot cannot quit your dreams or the things that you love, the people that you love for me.  I’ll always be _right here_ – with all of you.”

The colors are fading in the background, a calm chill setting in the atmosphere and he can see it in the shake of her limbs, the way her shoulders drop – she’s getting weaker again, tired.

She smiles dimly for him, squeezing trembling fingers to his shoulder.  He stands to help her up but she brushes him off with a giggle, a swatting hand and a whispered _‘I’m not that old, sunshine, and I raised you lot so I don’t need you to help me’_ but there’s gratitude in her eyes when he escorts her towards the door.

“Life is chasing dreams, sunshine,” she says, nudging him back as she reaches for the door, “And art is born out of the soul’s desires.  The heart’s emotions.  Obviously your heart is overflowing for him and those two little sweethearts.  Or maybe it’s just the way he makes you feel, yeah?”

Zayn swallows, looks down again because he still can’t quite say it.  But he thinks it; fuck, _he thinks it hard_.

She glances over her shoulder, lips quirking up while the breeze flops her hat out of place.  “Doni sent in an application for you to CalArts.  Waliyha and Safaa helped her gather up a bunch of your pieces for a portfolio,” she tells him and that flicker of pride like stardust in her eyes unsettles all of his thoughts.  “She loves you, Zee, and wants you happy.  And maybe that’s right here, with him.”

Tricia is inside with the door shut, laughter spilling through all of the cracks and the sound of Doniya’s giggle seeping from the half-cracked kitchen window.  He stumbles onto the stool, slouched with a hand under his beanie to twist in his hair.  The twilight around him burns like late bonfires and it’s seconds before he remembers to breathe.

He grabs a few brushes, dipping them in neon paints and primary acrylics and paints until the sky is a pitch black and his hands stop shaking.

It’s the only thing he can think to do.

 

/+/

 

Everything is blue and green and beautiful a couple of days later and it’s a little late in the afternoon when he pulls up to that small bungalow sitting on the corner of nothing and sand.

The front door is wide open, the patchy grass looking gold and emerald and there’s a pile of boxes sitting in the open trunk of Liam’s SUV.

Zayn climbs the drive, his feet stopping midway, and his heart falters –

Not at the sight of Liam, with his bare chest and shiny Aviators and rumpled hair, but at the way his muscles stretch into this taut shape while carrying another heavy box towards the truck.  The way his flip flops drag along the gravel and everything that was once relaxed, loose about him seems stern and coiled.

The way he knocks his sunglasses up to narrow his eyes at Zayn for a long moment without speaking.

And Zayn is expecting a scowl or a frown when Liam strides down the rest of the drive but, instead, Liam’s face melts into this dopey grin and crinkled eyes and Zayn thinks his heart starts up again when Liam tries to wink at him but fails.  It’s just this dumb flicker of his eyelids and Zayn wants to kiss him.

He wants to knock the box out of his hands and spend forever curled tightly in those arms.

 _Fuck_.

They meet at the SUV and Liam motions towards the cab, sitting on the open tailgate with the box between his feet and Zayn’s anxious, nervous when he flops down next to him.

“Hey,” he mumbles because everything else is too heavy to say right now and Liam knocks a knee to Zayn’s to greet him.

“Am I allowed to say – “

“I’ve missed you,” Zayn says before Liam can finish and his cheeks burn up like a solar flare but Liam sneaks fingers into Zayn’s palm to wrap around his, shoves a smile into Zayn’s shoulder and they both relax immediately.

“Are you leaving?” Zayn asks.  He hates how weak, vulnerable his voice sounds because – a _nothing_ , remember?

Liam shakes his head, nuzzles his nose to Zayn’s neck to inhale his scent and Zayn hates the crawl of Liam’s fingers across his knuckles because it feels like a promise neither one of them can keep.

“Just packed up some old stuff,” Liam admits, picking at the frayed threads on Zayn’s bracelet before tugging out a collection of old photos piled into the box at his feet.  “Guess I’ve been keeping her around for too long.”

She’s beautiful, a yellowing photo of Emily holding an infant Annabelle in her arms.  Her copper hair, soft round cheeks, eyes like the ocean floor from an aerial view.  Full lips like Jackson, skin a quiet glow like Annabelle in the morning.  There’s a definition to her cheekbones and a quirky smile like she knows all of the world’s secrets but won’t tell them.

Liam flips through a few more pictures – a vacation in the country, crinkled eyes when he looks at her at sixteen, Jackson caught between their arms for a _‘family first’_ sort of photo even though they’re both still just children – with a trembling hand but a strong smile.  She’s laughing into his neck, arching an eyebrow while Liam feeds a toddler Jackson, buried in a mountain of blankets and looking so young.

They swallow together at a crinkled photograph of her, Jackson clinging to her back with Annabelle in her arms and the late summer wind kicks against their shoulders.

“Figured I’d just,” Liam shrugs, rubbing a thumb over her face, “send them off to her family back home.  I dunno.  Just – _let go_ , I s’ppose.”

He ruffles free fingers through his hair until it comes back shaggy and Zayn instantly fixes it, tucks a grin to Liam’s bare shoulder until the tendons in his arms calm.

“ _Leeyum_ ,” he whispers and there’s a kiss at his hairline, calloused fingers nudging his chin until he looks up.

Liam grins, even with something sad at the corner of his eyes, before he says, “I thought I found something that could replace her.  Or someone to fix it.”

 _You’re not broken_ , Zayn thinks but he bites his lip to stop the words and lets Liam’s fingers tickle along his stubble instead.

He thinks of some silly song Louis loves to play in their weakest moments, just a fractioned _‘we keep this love in a photograph we make these memories for ourselves’_ that he keeps repeating until his lungs fill with water and his heart burns like the center of a coal.

And when he’s feeling braver, he says, “Keep them.  For Belle, for Jack.  I’m sure they’ll want to know, one day, more about their mom.”

Liam snorts, ducks his head and brushes soft lips to Zayn’s for a brief breath.

“And what do I do when they ask about you?”

He freezes all over, Liam’s forehead nudged to his, their noses brushing and his fingers crawl up Liam’s forearm to scratch at his tattoo.  To mark out _‘so you can keep me inside the pocket of your ripped jeans’_ with determination and resolve and _be strong, Zayn, it’s worth it_ in the back of his mind.

His teeth bite along his bottom lip, his tongue tasting Liam’s kiss.  “I got into CalArts,” he admits with a scratchy voice, fingers squeezing along Liam’s skin.  “Next semester.  Starts up in January, which is pretty sick ‘cause I can save up and get a flat off campus, maybe?  I can kick about here for awhile and – “

Liam kisses him.  He grips Zayn’s chin and holds him still and he feels like he’s drowning –

No, he’s _swimming_ in these lips and floating on the flick of a tongue and he doesn’t know when his fingers skim up Liam’s chest to feel his heartbeat but the drum of it keeps him steady against the waves.

“You’re gonna stay,” Liam mumbles to his lips with closed eyes.

“I’m gonna stay,” he repeats, grinning until his nose wrinkles and Liam swallows this happy noise crowded at the back of his throat with another kiss.

They sit in the sun, in their small space with brushing knees and curious fingers while Liam talks about selling the bungalow, finding somewhere just for them near the beach and school.  It’s the kind of decision Zayn didn’t expect, not so soon but Liam’s so convincing with his eyes, the lift of his grin.  He nudges his smile in the crook of Liam’s neck while he tells Zayn about deciding to keep Jackson and Annabelle here, about his parents’ disappointment but they understand.

They always do.

Zayn whispers about trading off classes between the two of them to watch Jackson and Annabelle, about weekends at the beach and nights helping Jackson with his reading while teaching Annabelle the alphabet.  Just silly daydreams about getting a dog and a backyard and all of stupid things Zayn never imagined having –

Like this boy with a dopey smile and almond eyes and a family of his own.

“S’that what we are?” Liam asks and he can’t hide that little indulgent tone in his voice, the way his lips stretch wide and pinker.

“A family?” Zayn asks even though he already knows.  Maybe he’s always known.  “Maybe.”

“Maybe,” Liam repeats but with a grin, with fingers running all along Zayn’s collarbone.

“I didn’t expect – “

Liam makes a noise, shakes his head.  “I didn’t either, man.  Not at all.  Not for a second after Emily but, you know, it’s – it’s cool.”

“Yeah,” Zayn laughs from the hollow of Liam’s throat, lips dragging up the skin.  “It’s cool.”

“Do you – “

Liam pauses, looking effectively young and shy and embarrassed with his lip tucked between his white teeth and his fingers scratching over all of the ink scattered on Zayn’s forearm.

Zayn laughs, bright and incredibly happy.  He nuzzles his nose to Liam’s throat, exhales a noise that sounds like a _‘yes’_ to the question Liam hasn’t asked but he knows.

Fuck, _he’s always known_.

“Now seems like a proper time, innit?” Zayn offers when he pulls back, his senses thick with the scent of surf wax and mint bubblegum and _Liam_.  “To say it, right?”

Liam’s mouth quirks into a smile, an _almost_ but –

“Zee!”

Zayn’s tongue licks away the _‘I love you’_ meant just for Liam when Annabelle and Jackson come running down the drive with crinkled eyes – _like Liam_ – and soft mouths – _like Emily_ – and clumsy smiles – _like Zayn_ – and they launch into his lap with matching giggles, curling around him and fitting into all of the small spaces between Zayn and Liam.

They squeeze around him, nudging their feet into Liam’s lap and Zayn can’t stop this insatiable laughter climbing up his chest.

“Never, ever go ‘way, mister,” Annabelle demands with a half-pout that’s made up of a smile and a frown.

He brushes back her fringe, kissing at her forehead while stringing spare fingers into Jackson’s messy quiff that’s nearly shaven into a Mohawk now.

“Never, princess,” he whispers back.

“You have ta swear!” she giggles into his neck with tiny arms trying to swallow him whole.  “No more goin’ ‘way, babe!”

Liam’s laugh echoes in his ears while Jackson nuzzles his other side and _Zayn_ –

“I love you,” he says to Annabelle first, then Jackson until both of their smiles are the size of the moon –

And when they’re all watching the sun until gold is imprinted into their vision, he mostly says it into the shell of Liam’s ear because they’re not a _nothing_.

They’re a nameless, undefinable _something_ that Zayn doesn’t mind clinging to.

 

/+/

 

Their first _real date_ goes a little something like this –

A box of Hawaiian pizza, all of the pineapples picked off and the ham replaced with chicken, fizzy root beer floats, a carton of chocolate ice cream from Grovestown, a canopy of something irreplaceable late into the evening with Jackson and Annabelle buried into their sides in the living room of that tiny bungalow he calls a _home_ now.

It’s nothing like Zayn imagined it – without the candlelight and some fancy restaurant neither one of them can afford and a goodnight kiss on the front stoop of his two-story house – but it’s something sort of unforgettable with Jackson laughing all through _the Lego Movie_ and trading eskimo kisses with Annabelle in the purple hollows of the living room and _Liam_ –

That smile on his candy pink lips, the crinkles around his eyes, the way he haphazardly runs his hands over Zayn’s skin in the dark like it’s all brand new.

Just like this –

They’re stretched and cramped along that ratty couch, tucked into each other with Annabelle’s feet in their ribs and Jackson snoring half on Liam’s chest.  With his temple pressed to Liam’s bare collarbone, calloused fingers swimming in his dark hair, the ocean in the background and their hearts thumping loudly.  Liam’s litany of kisses to his temple before their fingers find each other in the shadows, twisting together until they can’t stop grinning.

“This okay?” Zayn asks with a scratchy voice, a lazy smile.

Liam snorts and brushes their bare ankles until they’re comfortable.

“Maybe,” Liam teases, ignoring the whine in Zayn’s throat to drag his late evening stubble to Zayn’s forehead.  “Is it good for you?  I mean – _all of this_ , man?  Like the whole being here and moving away from your family.  What about your mom and – like, it’s a lot to take on the three of us.”

 _I know_ , Zayn thinks with a _‘but I feel like I fit right here’_ at the back of his throat and his mind drifts to corner puzzle pieces and everything in-between.

Annabelle is spread like a starfish across their thighs, giggling in her sleep while Jackson tries to climb across Liam’s chest to get closer to Zayn and he doesn’t have to think –

_He knows._

“My mum told me she’d always be here, with me,” Zayn whispers in the dark, eyelashes fluttering when Liam looks down at him.  “I dunno but it feels like she’s telling me to go.  To give this a try.”

“This?”

Zayn sighs but without the frustration.  It’s happy and sickly saccharine.

“Can’t say I’m not nervous,” Zayn admits with a husky voice.  “Like, what if when they get older, they don’t want me around.  What if I’m not good enough for them or summat?  Maybe they won’t want me to be their – “

Liam smiles, his nose wrinkling.  “One step at a time, dude.  They’re sort of in love with you.  You don’t have to be their – “

“But I want to be,” Zayn says so quickly, without the stutter or the nerves.  With the kind of _be brave_ he’s been trying to hold in the palm of his hand for months, for years.

They blink in the dark and rearrange all of their limbs until Jackson and Annabelle are neatly tucked between them but they’re closer, lips brushing.  They stretch their necks and meet halfway, foreheads nudging.

“ _Leeyum_ ,” he whispers to unsettle a smile over Liam’s lips and they don’t say anything else.

But Annabelle whispers a _‘papa’_ and Jackson hums _‘baba’_ and Zayn doesn’t mind the way his heart climbs his throat because their bodies fit like a corner puzzle –

Just like a _something_ he hasn’t named.

 

/+/

 

It’s a whole week later and it’s Liam’s birthday and all he wants to remember is this –

That little half-mile stretch of sand dunes and foamy waves with the sun stretching low over the ripples, painting the surface a dizzying pink.  There’s a large pile of driftwood, twigs, leaves from the palms making up a bonfire and it burns a crackling tangerine like the end of a cigarette.  It’s a little hideway in the heat of a twilight and this world feels so brand new.

The earth under their feet, the water rushing like a flood, the air a spitfire dying off into an ember with a heavy wind forcing them into pullovers and pink noses.

Just that little stretch of beach and Zayn knows –

It’s all _theirs_.

He grins from one side of the bonfire, watching Niall strum on an old Yamaha guitar with cherry-pink skin from the sunburn and floppy bleach-blonde hair falling in his eyes as he grins at Harry.  He’s halfway through Eric Clapton and on the verge of Coldplay with his bare feet tucked under Harry’s thighs and Harry’s losing long fingers in his hair to stutter his scratchy vocals.

Louis is chasing a football up shore with Annabelle desperately trying to keep up, her giggle a beat higher than Niall’s voice.  He’s teaching her all of his favorite tricks and shooting Zayn this lazy grin with a thumbs up when she mimics him.

“The next Beckham, this one right here,” Louis cheers as she tumbles in the sand and tries to balance the ball from foot to foot like a professional.

Zayn smiles into the sleeve of his hoodie, the fabric swimming over his knuckles and it stinks of fresh water, salty-sweet taffy, grape flavored board wax –

Just like _Liam_.

He chews on his lip while Jackson draws happily in the sand with a broken twig, nothing but crazy shapes and an uneven Superman symbol and smiley faces that he proudly shows off to Zayn.  Zayn ruffles his hair and drags him under an arm for messy kisses that Jackson squeals at but he doesn’t fight back –

He curls deeper into Zayn’s arm and buries half of his laugh in Zayn’s neck and whispers, “Love you Batman.”

“You’ll spoil him,” Liam mumbles into his shoulder and Zayn presses his spine to Liam’s chest and doesn’t whine when Liam doesn’t twist with him for a kiss.  He flexes his lips against Liam’s chin and the world slides too far to the left, angles to the right and he’s out of place –

Years from now, he’ll tell Niall this is what falling in love feels like.

He eyes Louis spinning Annabelle in circles near the edge of the tide, feels Liam’s smile brushing his temple while Jackson escapes his arms to tackle them into the splashing water.  He huffs a happy noise, laughs at the way Louis keeps practicing his proposal – or breakup – speech on Annabelle until she’s pinker than the sky and swatting him away.

Niall tunes his guitar to something else, something foreign with Harry halfway into his lap now and all Zayn hears is _‘right from the start I knew you’d set a fire in me and I’d rather be sad with you than anywhere away from you’_ in this rough voice, right next to Liam’s hitched breathing in his ear.

He lets Liam pick at all of the loose threads on his pullover, mouth at his beanie until they’re calm.

“I’m not any good for you,” Liam grins, tightening his arms around Zayn’s chest with his legs bracketing Zayn’s in the sand.

“That’s okay,” Zayn laughs and it’s this embarrassingly pleased noise, nothing like him a few months ago, that he tries to disguise until Liam whines in his ear.  “Hasn’t stopped me before.”

Liam smiles and Zayn catches him in the corner of his eye and _‘and hey I can’t believe I captured your heart’_ echoes above the late evening tide.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises while jostling Zayn, crawling to his knees and mouthing lazily under the hood to reach the tattoo high on Zayn’s spine.

“I know,” Zayn smiles, leaning forward to rest his chin on his knees while Liam runs up the sand to wrestle with Jackson and Annabelle.

They tumble, laugh, coat their skin and clothes in sand and Zayn doesn’t imagine his life without _this_ –

Not for a second.

Louis flops down next to him while Niall and Harry sneak kisses like the world isn’t watching.  He knocks their shoulders and Zayn punches him, sharing grins like fucking idiots in the sunset.

“Alright?” Louis asks, shrugging an arm around Zayn’s loose shoulders.

Zayn smirks at Liam, the darkening sky sparing nothing but crinkled eyes and a wide, wide grin.

“For sure,” he breathes a little too affectionately.

“And happy?”

“Unbelievably,” Zayn laughs, picking at all of the strings in Louis’ frayed cargos.  “Fucking wicked, right?”

“Sick, bro,” Louis grins, resting his temple against Zayn’s shoulder.

“Summer’s over,” Zayn whispers with Liam tossing Jackson over one shoulder while Annabelle clings to a leg, fighting against the surf until they’re almost soaked.  Harry’s biting Niall’s bottom lip and, just over the fire, Zayn thinks Niall’s got a hand climbing up the cuff of Harry’s board shorts and –

“But we’re not, dude,” Louis counters without a frown or apprehension.  “It’s just an hour drive up to the north shore.  Niall’s taking a term off to explore Europe with Harry for a few weeks and you’ll be so close when you – “

 _Helpless_ is the word he’s looking for.  Helpless and defenseless and _‘if you’re lonely, lonely, lonely, wake me’_ because he knows.

“We’ll be near campus.  Together.”

“A family,” Louis laughs, the sound almost pathetic but not pitying.  It’s indulgent in ways Louis Tomlinson has always been.  “Can you imagine?  Malik is settling down with the one dude he wasn’t gonna give a chance.  Fucking sick, bro.”

“Shut up,” Zayn says a little too fondly, nudging Louis off his shoulder.

“But you’re finally happy, right?” Louis asks.

Liam’s breathing is ragged when he falls into Zayn’s lap, flicking droplets of water across their hoodies and pressing sloppy kisses to Louis’ temple while fisting the cotton to tug Zayn closer.  His lips are a sterile coldness, tart with salt water and shy like always when he smiles after a kiss.

Annabelle and Jackson tumble until they’re nothing but a ball of limbs, hands everywhere, Jackson’s wet smile tucked into Zayn’s neck and Annabelle’s tiny arms around Louis’ neck.

“Love you baba,” Annabelle cheers at Zayn with crinkled eyes, gentle features like Liam.  “Just like Papa!”

“Me too,” Jackson mumbles against his skin.

Louis arches an eyebrow and Zayn can’t help himself.

“It’s nothing, right?” Liam teases with a soft smile.

Zayn grins back, fingers caught in the tangle of damp hair and he shakes his head quickly.  He nudges a foot to Liam’s ribs and drags his chin over Jackson’s head while blindly reaching for Annabelle and –

“No, it’s definitely a _something_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Again, if this was boring, forgive me. I know it was a slow, slow burn this time out but I wanted it to be just as much about Zayn and his life as much as it was about his relationships with Liam and the kids. Hopefully you were able to make it all the way to the end!
> 
> If so, thanks for taking the time to read this. Thank you if you leave it a few kudos or comments but just knowing people still read my stuff is pretty wicked.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr [here](http://jmcats.tumblr.com).


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